Amazon's peak holiday selling season brings ample opportunities to drive sales through strategic promotions. As an Amazon seller, it's essential to leverage these seasonal deals to stay competitive and maximize revenue during the make-or-break holiday rush.

Advertising for the Holiday Season

 With the hyper-competitive holiday sales rush on Amazon, it's crucial to amplify your advertising strategy. Jeff Lieber and his team from TurnKey recommend these high-impact optimizations:

Stay Visible- The holidays are prime time for shoppers to research and buy gifts online. Ensure you are allocating sufficient budget and competitive bids to your best-performing targeting and placements. Think of your ads as Rudolph guiding shoppers to your product as the ideal gift, and light up the digital sphere! Keep in mind that CPC bids significantly increase during the holiday season.

Highlight Promotions in Ads - Draw attention to your holiday discounts and deals prominently within Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Display ad formats. Strategically allocate more ad spend and assets to feature SKUs with active promotions and offers. Spotlighting deals in ads can incentivize conversion during high-intent shopping events.

Capture Gift Shoppers - Run related gift and holiday keywords, target complementary items that would pair well as a gift with your product, and target relevant category and recent category views. Optimizing for gift-related searches and cross-selling tactical targeting can connect you with high-intent gift shoppers.

Add Creative Cheer - Incorporate holiday images, graphics, and themes to your Sponsored Brand, Sponsored Display, and other ad formats. Reinforcing your product as a must-have gift item through festive and seasonal creativity can help you stand out on search and browsing channels.

Retarget Deal Shoppers - Capitalize on high seasonal traffic periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday by retargeting deal-focused shoppers across devices and through the rest of the holiday season. Use your DSP audiences to keep your brand top-of-mind.

Product Promotions for the Holidays

‍Prime Exclusive Discounts - This is our #1 recommended promotion for big shopping days. For Prime members only, these limited-time percentage or dollar-off deals prominently display the savings and will give you a special badge in the search results and on the listing. For major holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon requires a minimum of 20% off.

Coupon Clippings - For non-Prime items, clippable coupons provide comparable 20%+ discounts to match Prime-member deals. Increased promotional visibility on listings helps drive conversions making it a great option.

Promo Codes- Though low visibility on Amazon, promo codes can be effective when paired with external marketing like email blasts and social media. Consider enticing offers like BOGOs or tiered promo code discounts to increase the order value.

Subscribe & Save Coupons - Offer extra percentage or dollar-off discounts for first-time subscription orders to boost enrollment. Perfect for post-event promotions and to try to increase your number of subscribers.

Brand-Tailored Deals - Amazon's newest addition, allowing targeted promotions to specific audience segments. Ideal for post-holiday shoppers. Our team loves this feature - we've targeted audiences of up to 50k customers.

Amplify Holiday Sales Through External Marketing

While Amazon provides powerful built-in promotion tools, it's crucial not to rely solely on internal platforms during the holiday season. We recommend complementing your Amazon strategy with external marketing across channels like email, social media, SMS messaging, influencer partnerships, and paid advertising. Traffic and sales that originate from external sources also have the added benefit of having more weight to increase the ranking of your listings.

When leveraging external marketing, make sure to track performance through attribution tools. Amazon Attribution tracking links give you credit for conversions from external channels via a Brand Referral Bonus. These links allow you to monitor sales, page views, and add-to-carts driven by off-Amazon efforts. Another effective tracking tactic is using unique promo codes for each marketing channel this shows direct sales by source. Between the two we would recommend Amazon Attribution but promotional codes will also get the job done.

The holiday selling season isa marathon, not a sprint. With savvy preparation, strategic promotions planning, expanded inventory, and multi-channel marketing in place well ahead of time, sellers can make this period hugely lucrative. Pay close attention to key seasonal dates, aggressively promote deals across channels, amplify advertising, and meticulously track performance to maximize sales from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. Following this best-practice promotional blueprint will help your brand finish strong and hit new peaks this holiday season.

Blog Credit

Jeff Lieber and his team from TurnKey Product Management provided this article. TurnKey is an Amazon consulting company that sells over 8-figures in revenue for its clients each year. Whether you're just starting or are an Amazon expert, TurnKey can help take your sales to the next level - visit their sit here.