• by Ross Walker , Yesterday

Since Prime Day has moved to late June, now is the time to get in gear. There’s more riding on the event this year for three reasons. Coming earlier, it sets up the whole summer. Competition on day one will be more intense, because marketers got a four-day practice run last year. And consumers affected by inflation are waiting for deals. 

Six moves can get you ahead this year.  

Set margin targets. It’s easy to fall into the trap of high sales, low (or no) profit from Prime Day. So, identify ROI targets both overall and for specific items. To balance bottom-line guardrails with the opportunity to capture new consumers, base profitability on long-term value rather than one-time purchase. 

Make friends with Rufus, Amazon's generative AI-powered conversational shopping assistant.In an incognito browser, review the Rufus query section on your own and competitors’ product detail pages (PDPs). Type in the suggested queries, which come from shoppers’ common searches. You’ll see where you need to optimize content to answer them more clearly. The revise can increase Rufus responses within days. 

Clarify your terms. In addition to filling content gaps, layer in seasonal language, strengthen comparison messaging, and expand Q&A content, to emphasize category-level benefits. Aligning this language across PDPs and media will ensure Rufus, and shoppers, receive a consistent, compelling narrative during the Prime Day shopping surge.

Move up the funnel in May. Concentrate demand-side platform advertising on mid- to upper-funnel consumers. Make May the month for premium inventory such as Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney options, which will attract more people new to your brand. Then lean into non-branded keyword tactics and emphasize custom lookalike, in-market, and competitor-purchasing audiences. This includes cart abandoners and people who’ve viewed ads without purchasing. 

Make June about new-to-brand. Branded search and retargeting, which many marketers instinctively prioritize, won’t get you the full impact during Prime Day because people are searching for products by category (i.e., mid-funnel). The time to do this is now. Build share of voice and sales velocity leading into Prime Day, so your organic rank is higher on day one. 

Establish dayparting rules. To avoid running out of budget, use Amazon Marketing Cloud to track average hourly sales, so you can create a bidding schedule that matches peak demand. When you know your peak consumption periods, you can bid down or limit budget during the lulls. Ad-tech automation is essential, so you can apply customized templates by hour and by campaign. 

Just as you set lead-in promotions to capture awareness and build your organic search rankings before the event, keep the momentum afterward with a lead-out promotion. There will be cart abandoners and others who are close to purchasing but haven’t completed, and they can be converted.