According to reports, small and midsize businesses (that sell on the Amazon Marketplace) made more than .5 billion during Prime Day 2020 (held in October), which is a 60% increase from sales in 2019.
We say it every year and we will say it again: Don’t stock out!
If you don’t have Direct Fulfillment set up as a backup to FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon), you might miss out on sales. When Amazon warehouses are out of stock, customers cannot order your product before Amazon receives your inventory.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
“I specifically recommend building out video in Sponsored Brands. We have found that, on average, we are seeing quadruple the click-through rate (CTR) for our clients versus the original Sponsored Brands ads. It’s a great way to stand out while taking advantage of the opportunity to showcase how to use a product and send traffic back to a storefront to tie everything together.”
Amazon launched Prime Day in 2015 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The first Amazon Prime Day was a one-day retail holiday for Prime members. Since then, Prime Day has overtaken Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the biggest annual sales event on Amazon, with better deals on more products resulting in increased sales (and Prime memberships).
Using Search and Display together to form your Prime Day tactics allows you to not only capture the demand of those who are actively searching on Amazon but also to generate demand by layering in mid and upper-funnel strategies such as competitor conquesting and In-Market or Lifestyle audience targeting on top of Amazon Search ad units.
You can also use past Prime Day campaigns and metrics to guide you, though keep in mind that the ecommerce landscape and consumer preferences look different this year.
From buttoned-up operations to eye-catching creative and savvy advertising tactics, we’ve compiled the ultimate checklist to ensure you are Prime Day ready.
The Ultimate Prime Day 2021 Checklist
The big question is: Are you Prime Day ready?
– Emily Leung, Marketplace Operations Associate at Tinuiti
Tip: Choose your products wisely
- Are in stock and easily replenishable
- Have at least 15 reviews
- Have a 3.5-star rating or higher
- Include optimized images
- Include branded and keyword-optimized content
To set up Direct Fulfillment, go to the Warehouse Settings in your Vendor Central account and follow the on-screen instructions to set up a Direct Fulfillment warehouse.
Want to learn more on how to prepare for Prime Day? If you missed our 2021 Live Panel, you can view it on-demand here.
– Jackie Bui, Senior Manager, Amazon & Marketplace Channels at Tinuiti
One way to make the most of Prime Day 2020 is to invest in Amazon Direct Fulfillment. With COVID-19 continuing to affect some areas of online retail and distribution, Amazon has been reaching out to vendors to ensure that they understand the benefits of using their Direct Fulfillment program.
Tip: Create a subcategory page devoted to Prime
– Ben Gemkow, Director, Growth Media at Tinuiti
Tip: Check your inventory levels and historical performance
“Understand what your historical performance is for previous Prime Days. If you notice that you’re not the best player in a certain category [from previous experience] that’s a good indication you should look into a different category to perform. If you don’t have historical performance, then be ready to be competitive. Increase your keyword bids, increase your campaign budgets. Just make sure you are ready.”
(Check out our full 2020 Prime Day recap here.)
From an end-to-end channel management approach, the following post will outline what you should do before Prime Day to maximize sales and make this your most successful Prime Day yet.
Pro-tip: For vendors that are capable of direct fulfillment, we recommend that your Direct Fulfillment connection is set up correctly and you are ready to utilize this program for Prime Day and in Q4. If you are not currently using Amazon’s Direct Fulfillment program, you can get started by following the instructions within your Warehouse Settings in Vendor Central. Pro-tip: For vendors that are capable of direct fulfillment, we recommend that your Direct Fulfillment connection is set up correctly and you are ready to utilize this program for Prime Day and in Q4. If you are not currently using Amazon’s Direct Fulfillment program, you can get started by following the instructions within your Warehouse Settings in Vendor Central.
Recently, top ecommerce experts from Tinuiti, Skubana, eComEngine, and DataHawk gathered to share their best-kept secret strategies for prepping brands for guaranteed Prime Day success. “For me, Prime Day is all about buying the buyer. You want to have enough stock in place to support all the new eyeballs that your listing could be getting impression share on. As Ben mentioned, making sure you are properly in stock does involve going back and looking at your historical data. If your inventory is not stocked, you could lose that impression share to competitors and they could gain higher prioritization in the search engine framework.”
– Prateek Haralalka, Amazon Expert & Customer Success Manager at DataHawk
- How to engage new customers, optimize existing campaigns, and re-engage audiences
- How to use new Amazon features to increase click-through rate
- How to get your product in front of new customers on Prime Day (and keep them loyal)
- Ways to capitalize on Prime Day momentum to impact performance across other channels
- And more!
