How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day: DSP Strategies & Considerations for Success

As we await the official dates for this July’s Prime Day event, eCommerce brands need to focus on preparation strategies and tactics that can yield profitable results. The experts at Blue Wheel have gathered valuable insights on how to prepare for Amazon Prime Day by leveraging DSP strategies and key considerations before, during, and after this major shopping event.

Amazon Prime Day 2024 generated $14.2 billion in sales, making it the biggest Prime Day shopping event to date. Brands should be aware that Prime Day 2025 is expected to last 4 days instead of the usual two. Given these factors, along with the ongoing changes in customer purchasing behavior, rising advertising costs, and increased tariffs, it’s crucial to develop your Amazon Prime Day strategy on time.

Let’s explore how to prepare for Prime Day and which steps to take in the upcoming weeks.

Key Considerations for Prime Day

As you prepare for this year's extended Prime Day, it's important to consider macroeconomic variables and what to expect. Begin strategizing for Prime Day by focusing on what your brand can do before, during, and after the event.

Drawing from our extensive experience working with various eCommerce brands, we have compiled a list of considerations to help you get ready.

Let’s review how to prepare for Amazon Prime Day, keeping key considerations in mind:

Consumer Confidence

• Consumer confidence is on everyone’s mind now, as shoppers have a more conservative approach to spending. While sales may be lower now, this could benefit a high-traffic discount day like Prime Day. Adjust your Prime Day advertising to current shifts in consumer behaviour.  

Prolonged Shopping Period & Squeezed Margins 

• As the Amazon Prime Day event extends and profit margins tighten, brands facing inventory or tariff challenges might not offer as many deals as they have in previous years. So, if they can’t fully support promotions, we might see fewer discounts.

• The prolonged shopping period could mean more comparative shopping as consumers are looking to find the best deal, as they are more conservative with their spending.

Shoppers Stocking Up on Essentials

• Shoppers may take advantage of discounted products and stock up at lower prices. While this is common on Prime Day, greater economic trends could increase this behavior. 

• If customers are more conservative, taking advantage of discounted products and stocking up while prices are lower could benefit brands that are discounting or offering bundles or bulk discounts, especially during this time.

Inventory Availability

• As imports from China decline or are delayed, brands with strong inventory stand to benefit while others may not be able to participate due to inventory constraints.

• When faced with uncertain times, plan your Amazon Prime Day strategy and inventory by considering how to support specific products leading up to or during the Prime Day event.

What to Expect for an Extended Prime Day

Since we anticipate a 4-day shopping event, Whitney Weaver, the Director of Marketplace Advertising at Blue Wheel, has provided valuable insights and expectations on shopper behavior. Leverage them as you work on your Prime Day marketing and advertising strategies. 

Generally, during a two-day Amazon Prime Day, Day 1 tends to have high traffic and conversions due to the shorter duration of the event. The same usually happens near the end of Day 2. With a longer shopping period, consumers will have more time to explore, as well as more opportunities to make purchases or buy additional items.

Day 1

On Day 1, we anticipate that shoppers who plan ahead of Prime Day will be actively participating. Those who have already created their shopping lists or filled their carts will be ready to make purchases before inventory runs low or items go out of stock.

Typically, on this day, we observe the highest cost per click (CPC) rates, along with the most significant traffic and conversion spending. We expect this trend to continue on Day 1, as most shoppers are eager to see what's available.

‍

Days 2 & 3

For Days 2 and 3, however, we expect to see more window shoppers. While there may be higher traffic compared to a non-tentpole event, we anticipate slightly lower conversion rates, as these shoppers will be taking their time to browse.

During this period, it’s crucial to target audiences who have added items to their carts, particularly those who abandoned their carts, as well as those with optimal frequency. 

Day 4

On Day 4, we call this group of shoppers "the procrastinators." We've noticed that sales units nearly double per hour in the event's final hours. While vendors may find it challenging to track hourly data, sellers can monitor activity to identify spikes. 

As you develop your Amazon Prime Day strategy this year, ensure your advertising budget lasts throughout Day 4. Focus on cart abandoners and viewers of your products.

How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day: Key Steps

Ahead of the 4-day Prime Day in July, having a contingency plan and staying flexible will be crucial for eCommerce brands. 

Here are the key steps you need to take:

Prepare Orders and Line Items for Different Scenarios

• Outline the main strategy as well as additional supportive orders, line items, and creatives that can be activated based on early indicators. You want to look at your evergreen campaigns and what has worked for you historically. Proper audience segmentation will also be fundamental.

• There is also a great opportunity to reach new customers and test new audiences, as there will be much more traffic around the event on the Amazon platform. 

Contingency Spend Plan for Quick Maneuvers

• Set expectations and plan for Prime Day advertising spending ahead of the event, should initial budgets not be sufficient. In past Prime Days, we've noticed that brands’ ad budgets can be depleted very quickly. 

• Therefore, instead of just doubling your expected spending, consider increasing it by four or even ten times for Prime Day. It's also important to monitor your traffic closely, especially if you're a seller, as you can track performance hourly.

Adjust Expectations for Performance During the Lead-In

• As we're going into Prime Day, adjust your expectations for performance during the lead-in.

• Expect sales and conversion performance to slow in the weeks leading up to the event. Shift optimizations towards engagement, clicks, and Product Detail Page traffic. 

Be Patient and Calculated

• While it can be challenging, it is important to stay patient and calculated on Prime Day.

• Remember that advertising data will be delayed during the event. Leverage historical data, inventory, total sales, and category knowledge to make key decisions during the event.

How to Prepare for Prime Day: AMC & Historical Data

While prepping for Prime Day, it's necessary to understand both recent and historical performance.

Use the relevant data to build out your audiences and targeting, as well as media tactic planning on how you will reach these audiences. 

New-to-Brand & NTB Gateway Report

• Understand which product has the best chance at capturing new-to-brand customers and making them long-term loyal shoppers.

• One way to do this is through Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC). Use the New-to-Brand Gateway report that tells you which products tend to be the best to show to a new-to-brand customer. 

• With rising CPCs, acquiring customers through paid search has become more costly. Attracting  NTB customers or getting them to sign up for Subscribe & Save can be a more cost-effective, long-term strategy. 

Optimal Frequency Reporting and Audiences

Maximize your Prime Day investment by outlining:

• Optimal Daily Frequency for the highest conversion. Optimal frequency reporting helps you understand how many touchpoints you need in general to get someone to convert. 
• Under-served audiences to target before and during the event
• Over-saturated audiences to reduce spending on those who haven’t taken the desired action

Download our “Guide to Amazon Marketing Cloud & Amazon DSP” today!

Michael Tomasch, Senior Manager of DSP at Blue Wheel, pointed out that Amazon is improving AMC by making it more accessible to those without coding experience. There are more user-friendly report templates that you can pull directly from AMC UI. 

Also, Amazon Marketing Cloud allows brands to access reports from the past five years. This enables brands to analyze their past performance on key events like Prime Day and understand what strategies attracted high lifetime value (LTV) customers. 

By shifting focus from ROAS to a broader analysis, brands can make more informed, data-driven decisions for future strategies.

Prime Day 2024 & Cyber 12 Performance

• With a longer shopping window, comprehending shopper behavior and business performance will be key for your brand to anticipate during the event. Leverage Amazon Marketing Stream to understand the best time of day to spend.

How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day: Build Your Audiences 

When it comes to building out custom audiences, Amazon has made things far easier than before with its no-code, point-and-click solutions to build out unique audiences and audience groups. 

We don’t recommend waiting until the last minute to build some of these audiences. You want to ensure feasibility, as it helps you measure scale and understand how much you're going to be able to spend against some of these particular audiences. Keep in mind that you need at least 2,000 unique users for it to be a viable audience in the Amazon DSP.

‍

‍

As you can see in the visual above, there are many audiences you could use for various stages, including lead-in, during the event, and lead-out, or for future events.

Targeting Audiences 

You can utilize AMC's high-value audience solution to target audiences based on their stage in the shopper journey. For instance, if you want to reach customers who have previously purchased from your brand, you can create detailed segments based on their total purchases, purchase values, or even specific ASIN-level behavior.

These segments can be developed at the brand or ASIN level, and you can easily create lookalike audiences to attract new customers for upcoming events.

For users who have engaged with your products but haven't purchased yet, you can build audiences based on their actions, like adding items to their cart or visiting a product detail page. Identifying high-intent users who have visited multiple times without buying is crucial for targeted bidding.

Also, you can group audiences by media exposure, focusing on those who have seen a streaming or online ad but haven’t interacted with display ads recently. Serving them display ads can enhance engagement.

Once you have established audiences, you can align them with different phases of the selling process, including lead-in, during the event, lead-out, and future opportunities.

Understanding Multiple Touch Points 

The next step in preparing for Prime Day is deciding which ad units you want to utilize in DSP. Remember that shoppers' journeys are not linear; they discover new products and brands through various forms of media. 

With Amazon DSP, you can reach your desired custom audiences, no matter where they are, by using highly effective ad units. It's also essential to create multiple touch points with your existing and potential customers.

‍

Lead-In

During the lead-in period, focus on capturing shoppers' attention with streaming TV, Fire TV, Prime Video, and Alexa Audio to introduce your brand and generate product excitement.

Afterward, shift to more engaging ads, such as clickable online videos, Display ads, and Sponsored Brands videos. Enhance your targeting strategy by retargeting users who saw your streaming ads to improve ad recall and conversion rates.

Prime Day

As Prime Day approaches, prioritize premium visibility with top-of-search placements. Focus on Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Display Retargeting during this crucial time.

Lead-Out

In the lead-out phase, continue to use Sponsored Products and advanced retargeting through the DSP. Leverage the custom audiences built during Prime Day for future opportunities, such as the Cyber event and holiday sales.

How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day: Audio in DSP

“Audio is somewhat of an underutilized aspect of the DSP. From a retail media perspective, it's often overlooked and perhaps an afterthought, as historically it has been hard to attribute or quantify the impact,” Michael Tomasch said. 

Amazon dominates the smart speaker market with its Alexa device. And audio ads are an important part of the shopper journey, which can significantly boost engagement and ad recall. Studies show they capture 50% more attention than TV, social media, and display ads.

Creating Audio Ads for Prime Day

Audio ad creation has become simplified through Amazon DSP UI, enabling users to craft ads quickly, often within minutes. By utilizing large language models (LLMs), you can generate scripts, select your voice and music in DSP, and produce high-quality audio ads with no production costs. This makes it easy to create audio messages that excite consumers about upcoming product sales.

You can utilize interactive audio ads that work with voice activation and incorporate Alexa prompts, such as:

• "Remind me" (before the event)
• "Add to cart" (during Prime Day)
• "Missed opportunity" (after the event)

Your brand can stand out with these ads, and they are a cost-effective alternative to streaming TV. By leveraging Amazon's vast data, you can target your audience in a highly precise and interactive way.

Watch our “Amazon DSP for Prime Day Success” eCommerce Exchange video. 

Benefits of Using Brand+ and Performance+ for Prime Day

Brand+ and Performance+ belong to Amazon’s product suite and serve for AI-powered, goal-based advertising. 

How It Works 

• An advertiser selects conversion event(s), such as DTC website tag or Amazon purchases, as seed to create a bespoke Brand+ model. 

• Conversions matched to the Amazon Addressability graph in a privacy-safe and aggregated manner.

• A Deep Neural Network model (AI) processes the signals and identifies patterns used to generate predictive scores. 

• Amazon DSP delivers ads based on dynamic predictive scores, which take seasonality and trends into account.

Why Use Brand+ for Lead-in

Brand+ engages users in the consideration stage of interacting with your brand, intending to convert in the future. 

Build Early Awareness

• Engage users who are still in consideration
• Combine brand and product messaging

Smarter Spend

• Reduce waste via predictive scoring
• Avoid low-value impressions

Broad Reach

• 95% addressability on 1P/3P CTV
• Ideal for large-scale lead-in campaigns

Using Performance+ for Prime Day

Performance+ uses the same technology and has the same setup requirements as Brand+, but focuses on driving conversion events. 

• You can implement goal-based bidding to keep your acquisition costs within 20% of your target 
• Brand+ uses algorithmic bidding based on recency
• You maintain flexible control over key optimization levers
• It offers transparent campaign-level reporting

Lead-In & Lead-Out Approach for Amazon Prime Day

Four to six weeks before Prime Day, focus on awareness and consideration tactics. During this period, utilize Brand+, audio ads, and streaming TV to reach customers who are new to your brand.

As Prime Day Week approaches, shift your investment towards higher-converting tactics. By this time, you will have built your sales funnel and engaged a base of potential shoppers who are ready to convert. Reach out to them to remind them of their cart items and to ensure they see your promotions on Prime Day. This is the moment to concentrate on conversion.

‍

‍

After the Prime Day event, leverage the data on what customers have purchased. For instance, consider opportunities for cross-selling. If you sell air purifiers, for example, remind customers to purchase filters and encourage them to sign up for the Subscribe & Save program. 

Some brands implement post-Prime Day promotions, such as offering a 10% discount to shoppers who added items to their cart but did not complete the purchase. A message could read, “We missed you on Prime Day! Here’s 10% off if you’re still interested.” There are many effective ways to engage with shoppers after the event.

Final Thoughts 

We’ve outlined key tactics, strategies, and considerations to help you prepare for Prime Day this year. 

To conclude, here’s a practical checklist to support your brand’s success. Implement these steps in your Amazon Prime Day strategy as they can help maximize your brand's visibility and sales potential.

How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day: Brand Checklist

Brand-Focused Messaging

• Emphasize brand over products
• Leverage video & audio for consideration

Leverage Flexible Tactics & Tools

• Use ad products that allow for real-time bidding to maximize investment
• AI tools for Audio and Video Creation to help the marketing budget go further

Be Flexible & Patient

• Data is delayed on the day of the event; lean on the historical performance to understand what post-event performance will look like

Discount Smart

• Drive awareness early, shoppers will be looking to take advantage of deals
• Limit promo spend to branded ads during the event

Incentivize Basket Growth

• Use discounts, bundles, or Subscribe & Save
• Drive larger basket sizes and repeat purchases

Maintain Ad Investment (If Possible)

• Focus on the upper and mid-funnel
• Brands that maintained ad investment during COVID saw a major ROI increase

To dive deeper into ways to prepare for the upcoming Prime Day by leveraging Amazon DSP, AMC, custom audiences, and various ad types, we recommend watching our latest webinar in partnership with BWG Connect. 

Interested in learning more about our Amazon Ads and Amazon DSP services? Contact us today to discover how we can help you prepare for a successful Prime Day.