Prepping for Amazon's Prime Day 2018: An AMS Guide

Prime Day is officially here and that means it's time to prep your AMS strategies and tactics. What is Prime Day? A global shopping event on Amazon exclusive for Prime members and is typically hosted in mid-July. Whether you’re running a Prime Day VPC or a Lightning Deal, you need to ensure that you’re taking advantage of the traffic influx.

The 2018 Details:

• Date: July 16
• Duration: 36 hours (6 hours longer than in 2017 and 2016)

Prime Day Is Still Growing By Double Digits
While it may seem like a no-brainer to say that Prime Day is a BIG shopping holiday that all advertisers need to plan around, it is worth noting that this holiday is still not mature. To get a true sense of why Prime Day matters, let’s look at some key metrics from 2017:

• Tens of millions of Prime members made a purchase on Prime Day
• 50% more consumers made a purchase in 2017 compared to 2016
• Customer orders on the app more than doubled during the same period

This signals that Prime Day is incredibly popular and that its consumer interaction is still growing rapidly. As retailers, we need to be aware of these swings in order to take advantage.

Prepping Your AMS Account
There are some tactical optimizations that can be made to ensure your AMS account is ready for the big day.

1. Open Budgets: One of the core ways that advertisers can lose out on Prime Day is if their AMS campaigns run out of budget and go dark. To combat this, Rise recommends the following:

• Ensure you have budget set aside for Prime Day. This could mean increasing your budget caps upwards of 200%.
• From there, Budget Alert emails will be key to ensuring that campaigns and tactics do not go dark. Advertisers should have an "all-hands on deck" mentality to checking and adjusting budgets as they reach their limits.

2. Increase Bids: Rise expects an increase in competition as everyone scrambles to stay active within the auction. Adjust your bids upwards of 50% to ensure that you can stay competitive during this period and that you don’t miss out on the high-quality traffic that Prime Day generates.

3. Build Campaigns in Advance: If you plan to have a promotion or a core product to advertise during Prime Day, it is important to build these campaigns in advance— i.e., now! The AMS algorithm favors campaigns with spend and revenue history. If you’re launching a campaign the day before, you may not be eligible to play no matter how large your bids are set.

Don’t miss out on one of the biggest online shopping holidays! Be sure you’re setting your accounts up for success by following the above tactics.

For questions about Prime Day and our Amazon solution strategies, reach out to Rise.