Get Ready for Prime Day 2019 with Rachel Street and Jordan Ripley - Episode 81

IT’S TIME TO START PREPARING FOR THE BIG DAY

 

DESCRIPTION

Prime Day 2019 is coming up soon! We don't know exactly when it is, what it will look like, or how many hours it will span over this year. But we do know that it will happen sometime in July, and getting ready for it takes a lot of work, so it's time to start preparing right now.

Today, Kiri talks to Rachel Street and Jordan Ripley, two experts from Bobsled Marketing. While Rachel is an Advertising Account Manager, Jordan is a Project Manager. In today's episode, Rachel and Jordan will take us through operations, organic marketing, and advertising, in preparation for this year's Prime Day. Tune in today to find out how you can prepare just in time for Prime Day!

 
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"On Amazon, it's about occupying more landscape, and it's going to be cluttered, it's going to be competitive, so you have to expect to see higher CPCs. Lightning deals might not have a really high sell-through rate because of the competition, but if you're targeting correctly, and evaluating your skews correctly, you're going to see the biggest impact where it matters."

— Rachel Street, Advertising Account Manager

"From an inventory standpoint, Amazon has their official recommendation. They say have all your inventory in fulfillment centers by June 27th. I personally like to be better safe than sorry and not be trying to cut that deadline close. The main thing you need to be ahead of here is forecasting additional inventory coverage. Ideally, you have some data from prior years to understand the impact of Prime day on your brand specifically."

— Jordan Ripley, Project Manager


 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Prime Day last year was the biggest day ever of global sales on Amazon. And their website crashed.

  • Jordan talks about what has worked well with past Prime Days, from a best-practice standpoint when preparing for inventory, general operations hygiene, and marketing.

  • Prime Day can be looked at almost like Q4, but distilled down to a very intense period of time.

  • Amazon recommends that you have all your inventory in fulfillment centers by June 27th.

  • You need to be forecasting additional inventory coverage for Prime Day, so having some data from previous years will help you understand the impact of Prime day on your brand.

  • If you don't have any information from previous years you can look at the sales of your close competitors, or at how you benchmark against the channel as a whole.

  • It's important to plan early and to put yourself in a position to capitalize on the influx of traffic, demand, and conversion rates that we see around Prime Day.

  • There are some contingencies that you can put in place for Prime day.

  • Jordan explains that for brands, all the standard things that they should be looking at regularly become two or three times more important during this time-frame.

  • During this time, brands need to ensure that their inventory levels are where they need to be for any scheduled deals and that their advertising campaigns are flexible enough around budget and bids in order to capitalize on Prime Day.

  • Rachel explains why it's really so important to be preparing for Prime Day right now.

  • Rachel explains what she has seen to be effective in previous years for driving traffic to Amazon, for product listings, and for getting the most bang for your buck over this period.

  • The benefits of doing a product show-and-tell on Amazon about what you're going to have on Prime Day.  

  • Creating the biggest impact where it matters comes down to your product selection.

  • The disappointing and expensive suggested ad campaigns that were coming out directly from Amazon for Prime Day.       

  • Prior to Prime Day, it's important to think about the time that your ads need to be established and relevant. This will help you get better placements on Amazon when you're winning the auctions.

  • Rachel suggests the best time for setting up your Prime Day strategy.

  • Optimizing for Prime Day.

  • You're going to want to have looser thresholds at the beginning of the Prime Day period, and then tighten up the thresholds back to your original bid processes a week or two following Prime Day. Rachel gives a clear explanation of what this means in terms of bidding smartly.

  • The impact of the new bidding options on CPCs.

  • PPC is going to be a big part of having your optimization strategies in place and increasing budgets for Prime Day.

  • Making sure that the product listings for the ads you're running are retail-ready, and being watchful as far as PPC goes.

  • What it takes to be retail-ready.

  • People who are not on Amazon also know about Prime Day, so sellers can also be leveraging off-Amazon ads on social media and through influencers.

  • The benefits and importance of having some sort of incentive, giveaway, or coupon for consumers on Prime Day.

  • Knowing and understanding the impact that the volume from Prime Day will have on your ads.

  • Using the information from Prime Day to analyze your performance, to understand what works, what doesn't work, and why. This information can also be used to plan for Q4.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Season 2Kiri MastersComment