How advertising during big events can help attract customers
By: Koen Pauwels, Principal Research Scientist
Advertisers often ask how to make the most of major shopping events like Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday in order to strengthen their marketing strategy. There are several key benefits to doing so: First, major shopping events can be an opportune time to attract new-to-brand (NTB) customers (first-time purchasers of an advertised product over the prior year). Additionally, advertising during big events could lead to an increase in sales, discount effectiveness and brand awareness. Finally, in a recent Amazon Ads and Kantar survey, 53% of shoppers said they were likely or highly likely to repurchase again after Prime Day – so the benefits don’t need to stop after the event.1
1. Attract new-to-brand customers
Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday are key shopping events that can attract NTB customers at a significantly higher rate than normal. The time leading up to an event can be ideal time to begin increasing awareness. For example, 82% of shoppers surveyed were likely or highly likely to learn about new brands leading up to Prime Day.2 Additionally, brands that advertised leading up to and during Prime Day showed a 216% increase in awareness and 214% increase in considerations, compared to the prior week.3
2. Increase sales during Amazon events
In a 2019 study of the top 15 single-serve coffee brands, the collective annual spend of customers who made their first purchase during Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday was more than 1.9X and 1.2X, respectively, the total annual spend for NTB customers during the average non-Amazon day.
NTB customers who purchase during Amazon events spent less over the following year than other NTB customers, indexing 0.9X and 0.8X baseline NTB spend per customer. However, the numbers of NTB customers during these two Amazon periods were high enough, at 2.1X and 1.5X, respectively, that the volume of NTB customers made up for the lower average per-customer spend. As a result, the sales value of NTB customers purchasing during Amazon events remains relatively high against other days of the year, and advertisers should expect that customers who make their first purchase during Amazon events will contribute additional sales to their brand over the following year.
New-to-brand (NTB) customers’ spend by Amazon event
| Total NTB first-year spend indexed vs. baseline | Baseline | Prime Day | Black Friday/Cyber Monday |
| Average NTB first-year spend indexed vs. baseline | 1 | 0. | 0.8 |
| Daily number of NTB customers indexed vs. baseline | 1 | 2.1 | 1.5 |
| Total NTB first-year spend indexed vs. baseline | 1 | 1.9 | 1.2 |
3. Help improve discount effectiveness with display advertising
Advertisers that offered a discount during Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday attracted more NTB customers than the average non-Amazon event day. Moreover, those who also ran display advertising saw an even greater increase their total NTB customers that those offering a discount alone.
During Prime Day, brands that offered a discount and used display advertising had 57% more NTB customers than brands that offered a discount alone. During Black Friday/Cyber Monday, brands that offered a discount and used display advertising had 13% more new NTB customers than brands that offered a discount alone. The data shows offering a discount and complementing it with display advertising can help advertisers reach more customers during Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
New-to-brand (NTB) customers by promotion type
Prime Day
Black Friday/Cyber Monday
Discount only (Group 1)
Display and discount (Group 2)
Methodology
Advertiser selection
The top 15 brands in the single-serve coffee pods and capsules category were selected for this study. Each Amazon event and the following 12 months was included in the study for a total period of just over 2 years.
Key metrics/indices
Custom metrics were assigned to these brands based on new-to-brand acquisition.
- New-to-brand customer acquisition metrics
- Daily average number of new-to-brand customers during Amazon events vs. rest of year
- Total new-to-brand first year spend of customers acquired during Amazon events vs. all other new-to-brand customers
- Ratio of new-to-brand customers vs. existing or repeat customers
- Average new-to-brand first year spend vs. existing customer spend.
How did we determine these results were significant?
We applied ANOVA tests to determine if the differences observed among our 15 advertisers were significant. We used a Gradient Boosting model to explore the importance of display advertising, and discounts. The gradient boosting model provided additional evidence that the combination of offering a discount and advertising was more likely to drive incremental new customers than advertising or offering a discount alone.
1 Kantar Quickfire Survey, 2022. 3,008 survey respondents (across US, CA, MX, UK, DE, JP, AU) who shopped Prime Day week in 2020 and/or 2021 and plan to do so in 2022
2 Kantar Quickfire Survey, 2022. 3,008 survey respondents (across US, CA, MX, UK, DE, JP, AU) who shopped Prime Day week in 2020 and/or 2021 and plan to do so in 2022
3 Amazon internal data, 2021, US, CA, MX, UK, DE, JP, AU