It’s upon us yet again…Prime Day is right around the corner. Amazon’s largest sales event of the year is going to be taking place on July 11-12. As a quick recap, the global two-day shopping event rolls out dozens of doorbuster deals across various product categories for their Amazon Prime subscribers. Not only does Prime Day present an opportunity for sale-loving shoppers, but it also poses a unique opportunity for publishers. Just last year alone, publishers experienced record high sales from their Prime Day efforts, with some even doubling their year-over-year revenue. Therefore, the event offers savvy, commerce-forward publishers a prime opportunity for some huge payoffs.
In the interest of those who are not utilizing affiliate/commerce content in their day-to-day, here is a quick recap of how to benefit from Prime Day. Publishers can make a profit through the event by adopting an affiliate marketing model through Amazon. With this model, publishers would be eligible to receive commission on any Amazon purchases made through the links and ads hosted on their sites. Aside from the potential revenue, this program can also offer publishers some valuable information. The data collected from these Prime Day sales can provide key insights that can be used for future affiliate marketing content (such as what products to write, which audiences are their “money makers,” etc.). Overall, for publishers, there are a vast number of upsides to jumping on the Prime Day train!
In order to succeed in your Prime Day efforts, it’s important to know what works best; lucky for you, we have six best practices that we’ve gathered over the years through testing with our customers to add authority and credibility to your Prime Day efforts:
- Have strong CTA buttons. We’re not talking about just a hyperlink in the middle of the text that can be easily glossed over or even missed entirely. We’re talking about strong, clear, and present CTA buttons that truly grab the reader’s attention. Your CTAs should be large, easy to spot, and placed directly below the product review/ad spot. Furthermore, research suggests that using CTAs in this manner tends to garner stronger results for improving overall clickout rates.
- Coordinate where you place the price and destination (Amazon, Target, etc.) on the CTA buttons. We have found that when the platform is specifically referenced with the price, the conversion rate may see an overall increase as it sends out better-informed, higher-intent users. Therefore, when making the cost on the site more dynamic, we see better performance as it better leverages sales and sends more users to the site. The pricing information being laid out in this manner offers consumers a better understanding of the product that they are clicking out to, and in turn, can lead to a stronger intent to purchase. It’s also important to keep in mind that for Amazon specifically, it is a policy requirement to make sure that the price is dynamic and changes based on the current actual price on their platform so it won’t be misleading.
- Strategically place your ads. Keep your stories clean and concise when it comes to ads. Multiple pop-ups and ads flooding the margins can serve as deterrents to your commerce goals. The story and the products it’s promoting should be the focal point, so limiting the amount of ads on the page is imperative for creating a lighter ad experience. In turn, this allows the user to focus more on the shopping process, decreases bounce rate, and increases the overall time the user spends on the site.
- Curate single product stories. Stories that focus on marketing a single product tend to be easier to optimize than stories that try to promote multiple products across different categories. Overall, it’s just the simple principle of limiting variables when you try to test. A single-product focus also supports a stronger targeting strategy, as the story can be more specifically tailored to that audience’s needs and wants. Also, this strategy has been shown to yield better conversion rates and lead to more Amazon purchases.
- Keep a close range of prices. For stories featuring multiple products across the same category or niche, a good strategy is to make sure that the prices are relatively similar to one another. This process is especially helpful for keeping a stable revenue-per-purchase stream. Placing a limit on the price range also makes it easier to understand the performance of the story. Another advantage of this practice is that it creates a more even experience for the user.
- Try out the top performing product categories. From our experience, we’ve seen that the highest performing verticals are home and garden, beauty, fashion, and makeup. We’ve noticed that these are the most scalable and consistent product categories for Prime Day sales. However, if these verticals don’t fall under your company’s niche, then you should stick to what you know!
Ready or not, Prime Day is here. If you’re looking to get in on Amazon’s biggest sale event of the year, then your time is now. Preparation for a successful Prime Day effort is imperative, so get your commerce strategies in order with the help of our six best practices and make the most of this year’s Prime Day event.
