2 Prime Day ad strategies used by top performers in 2021

In this 2021 study we analyze two Prime Day advertising strategies leveraged more often by top performers than lower performers on Amazon.

With Prime Day 2022 right around the corner, Amazon Ads researchers looked back to see how strategies differ between top-performing and lower-performing Prime Day advertisers (determined by composite growth in sales and detail page views). To perform our analysis, we identify close to 600K advertisers across eight locales and four verticals (a total of 32 locale-vertical combinations) that advertised on Amazon for Prime Day in 2021. Next, we group top-performing and lower-performing advertisers together for each locale/vertical to allow for a direct comparison of advertiser actions.

In this article we explore two Prime Day strategies that differentiate top performers from lower performers.

In 30 out of 32 comparisons, top-performing groups invest more post-Prime Day than lower-performing groups

For Prime Day, there are three periods where advertisers can reach customers: pre-Prime Day (- two weeks), on Prime Day, and post-Prime Day (+ two weeks). In this study, we find that when comparing pre-Prime Day and post-Prime Day investment, 30 of 32 top-performing groups increase investment post-Prime Day—whereas lower-performing groups are more likely to decrease investment post-Prime Day.

This finding is also supported by a recent study by Amazon and Kantar that shows why advertising post-Prime Day can be effective. According to the study, 53% of shoppers are likely/highly likely to repurchase again after Prime Day week, and 52% of shoppers are likely/highly likely to rely on ads to remind them to purchase products after Prime Day.

In 20 out of 32 comparisons, top-performing groups invest more on multimedia ad channels than lower-performing groups

We also find that top-performing groups leverage at least one additional multimedia ad channels, outside of sponsored ads products, more often than lower-performing groups. In 63% of comparisons across the eight locales and four verticals, top-performing groups delivered more impressions through multimedia ad channels than lower-performing groups.

Similar to the effectiveness of post-Prime Day advertisements, we also find that adding an additional multimedia ad channel to be a useful tool for advertisers. According to a new causal study on the effectiveness of adding non-sponsored ad products into ad campaigns, we find that brands that incorporated at least one media channel (video, Streaming TV ads, audio, Fire TV, Fire tablet, or Freevee—formerly IMDb TV) into their campaigns perform better than those who only invest in sponsored ads.

Conclusion

As seen in this study, there are two strategies that advertisers may want to consider for Prime Day 2022. Advertisers can consider increasing ad spend in the two weeks following Prime Day to capture continuous purchase enthusiasm, or allocate investments towards a multichannel approach instead of investing in sponsored ads alone.

Methodology

The study selected about 1 million brands that advertised during Amazon Prime Day 2021 and then applied homogeneity audit and outlier removal to control advertisement spend over multiple factors within the same locale and vertical, including retail sales, retail units, and number of ASINs.

Among close to 600K brands that passed the above selection, the study further ranked brand performance based on period-over-period growth in sales and detail page views, within the same locale and vertical. Then the study identified top decile brands (fastest growth) and lowest decile brands (slowest growth) and compared their differences in impression allocation across time period and ad products.