Amazon Prime Day 2024: The Full-Funnel Game Plan

Outside of Q4, Amazon Prime Day is the biggest holiday shopping day of the year. Last year, Amazon had its biggest Prime Day ever, as shoppers purchased more than 375 million items throughout the event. With the annual summer event fast approaching, brands hoping to win big this Prime Day should already be ramping up their marketing plans.

Retail marketers know that the channel is evolving so fast that last year’s Prime Day playbook may not be enough this year. One of the most significant areas of retail media expansion to lean into this Prime Day is the growth of mid and upper-funnel ad opportunities like display, CTV, and offsite media. Many advertisers still focus solely on the bottom of the funnel when planning their Amazon Ads strategy — which means they’re missing out!  This wider portfolio of ad and targeting types enables a full-funnel strategy to impact and influence Prime Day shoppers wherever they are in the customer journey.

Brands should be aware of this, and agencies should lead their clients into a full-funnel Prime Day approach or risk being leapfrogged by scrappier, more nimble brands.

As you gear up for Amazon Prime Day 2024, consider shifting to a more integrated full-funnel strategy using Amazon Ads. This method diversifies your advertising efforts, enhances your reach, and ensures a media balance that can drive awareness, nurture consideration, and increase revenue.

So, let’s make this the first full-funnel Prime Day!

Five reasons to use a full-funnel Amazon Ads strategy for Prime Day 2024

Here are some things to consider as you finish up your planning for the big event.

You don’t have to rely exclusively on other channels to fill the funnel

Traditionally, retail media has been viewed primarily as a tool for bottom-funnel marketing, with brands often relying on other channels like search, social media, video ads, and email to drive traffic to their Amazon product detail pages. Although using other channels is certainly important, it’s not the only option for you.

The landscape is changing. Now, with the full portfolio of Amazon Ads, brands can capitalize on upper-funnel opportunities that increase brand awareness and foster early-stage consideration while on Amazon.com. This opens up new avenues for marketers to engage potential customers throughout the buying process.

You should still use your other channels to fill the funnel, but don’t pigeonhole retail media as just a bottom-funnel tactic — it can do more to influence purchase decisions than you may have thought possible.

Amazon shoppers aren’t always sure what they want

Many shoppers wait all year for Prime Day deals on everything from electronics to school supplies, but that doesn’t mean they go to the site with specific items in mind. 

• 75% of Amazon shoppers discover new products and brands using the platform.
• Nearly 60% of shoppers do “window shopping” on Amazon weekly, browsing without a specific product in mind.
• 10% of shoppers frequently explore Amazon without intending to make immediate purchases.

With the right deal in place, Amazon shoppers have repeatedly demonstrated that they are open to changing their minds. Meeting Prime Day shoppers at the critical first stage of the funnel means keeping your products top-of-mind, and they continue to weigh the pros and cons before hitting the purchase button. Amazon Ads can absolutely make the difference when a shopper is on the fence and willing to consider other offers.

Your competitors could be waiting to swoop in

As you use your various marketing channels to guide customers toward a purchase on Amazon, be aware that competitors can capitalize on your efforts. They may place strategic Amazon Ads at crucial moments, potentially diverting your sales to their products. In essence, they’re letting you pay to get consumers interested in your product category so that they can convert them in the store.

Engaging with Amazon Ads throughout the customer journey is essential to counter this. Your competitors might offer more appealing deals through prominently placed sponsored ads, making it difficult for customers to recognize the value of your product. On Prime Day, when competition is fierce, using Amazon Ads to maintain visibility and competitiveness is crucial.

You could be the competitor waiting to swoop in 

While losing a customer at the last step in their journey is a real possibility, you can also employ this strategy to your benefit. Using Amazon Ads strategically throughout the customer’s journey can preempt your competitors. This means placing your ads at critical points where potential customers make purchasing decisions, effectively capturing sales that might otherwise go to others. 

This is true, especially if your competitors are still using last year’s Prime Day playbook and not embracing a full-funnel Amazon Ads strategy. Amazon’s targeting capabilities allow you to challenge rival products and brands directly — including your competitors’ product detail pages. This enables you to attract shoppers actively browsing, possibly swaying them towards your products instead during Prime Day.

You’ll never know where the customer is in their journey

The marketing funnel is more than just a straight path from discovery to purchase. It’s a winding road where shoppers find your product through an ad, then read reviews, check out social media, and maybe read a few articles before returning to Amazon to continue their search. Because of this, you can’t plan siloed top, middle, and bottom funnel ads with any degree of accuracy.

That’s why keeping your product visible in many places with a full-funnel strategy for Prime Day is important. This helps keep your deal at the top of shoppers’ minds as they move through different stages during their decision-making process.

Tips for full-funnel Prime Day 

Ready to amp up your Prime Day strategy? Here are some great ways to get started. 

Own your aisle with a full-funnel mindset. Embracing a full-funnel approach means understanding that consumers will discover your brand in various ways.  According to Amazon, “owning your aisle” involves investing in diverse ad types to stand out within your category and differentiate your brand from competitors. For example, an outdoor brand promoting tents might use a mix of ad formats to reach shoppers searching for “camping gear,” “tents,” or even “tent accessories.” This approach includes running ads on your product pages to prevent competitors from occupying that space and to promote new products or exceptional deals.

Focus on brand building across the funnel. Engaging shoppers in the awareness and consideration stages is essential to maintaining their interest throughout the buying process. Bid on broad categories relevant to your products, deploy sponsored products, video, and display ads to tap into audiences whose past shopping behaviors may align with your target market. Amazon’s extensive first-party data should be leveraged to enhance visibility and relevance on Prime Day.

Leverage Amazon DSP for comprehensive audience engagement. Utilizing Amazon DSP is a strategic move to deepen your full-funnel approach. Employ the Amazon Ads audience builder to meticulously craft campaigns that address every stage of the consumer journey. This tool enables you to create campaigns based on detailed criteria like lifestyle, look-alike targeting, and even streaming preferences, ensuring you engage potential customers from awareness to consideration and conversion.

Finally, invest in your product listings. A successful Prime Day campaign begins well before you bid on ads. While your product detail pages (PDPs) aren’t technically part of Amazon Ads, retail media marketers who aren’t fully invested in their PDPs could see their ad performance shrink. It might even be worth using some of the working media budget to sharpen these pages.

Initiate your full-funnel strategy from the bottom up. It’s vital to ensure your product pages are impeccable — free from spelling errors and featuring your products in the best possible light with quality images, glowing reviews, and excellent ratings. This is crucial because when a consumer clicks on your Amazon ad, you might encounter them at any stage in their journey.

You can’t rely solely on brand recognition; many consumers may not be familiar with your brand yet. Utilizing the Featured Offer tool to highlight outstanding deals can also significantly increase your chances of attracting attention.

A full-funnel Amazon advertising strategy is excellent all year round. Still, for Prime Day, ensuring that your brand stands out throughout every phase of the customer journey is essential, maximizing visibility and driving conversions. 

Let’s make this Prime Day your most profitable yet!

Does a full-funnel Amazon Ads sound complex? Skai makes it easy

Skai’s Retail Media solution empowers marketers to plan, execute, and measure digital campaigns that meet consumers when and where they shop. As part of our omnichannel platform, we connect the walled gardens and manage campaigns on 100+ retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Instacart, alongside major publishers across paid search, paid social, and apps.

For more information, schedule a brief demo to see how our Amazon Ads support can help boost your Prime Day strategy.