Tips to start strong with your festive season marketing
What matters most to you this shopping season? Maybe you want to take advantage of key sales days around the world to introduce your brand and products to potentially new Amazon shoppers. Maybe you want to get more eyes on your biggest deals or scale a new product. Whatever the case may be, festive season marketing is a chance for your brand to stand out on Amazon, and advertising with sponsored ads can help you.
We know that the festive season is an important time of the year for your business, so we have tips for when and how to get started. Here’s how you can drive Amazon festive season sales and try and grow reach, consideration, and conversions.
When should I start marketing for the festive season?
Shoppers have already kicked off their festive season shopping with Prime Day – don’t wait until Black Friday to begin running your holiday ads.
Here’s an overview of key sales days and festive seasons in 2022.
Black Friday: 25 November
Cyber Monday: 28 November
As part of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon offers bargains and lightning deals to shoppers – many of whom take advantage of the dates to shop for festive season presents and more. Ad impressions tend to be higher during Black Friday/Cyber Monday, due to higher shopping interest. Since the shopping event happens in the US and in countries around the world, you have an opportunity to showcase your brand and products as customers start to research, consider and shop.
Christmas: 25 December
Shoppers prepare for Christmas weeks – sometimes months – in advance. As one of the biggest shopping events around the world, it’s a great opportunity for your brand to appeal to shoppers researching wish lists and gift lists.
Other key special events and festive seasons
It’s important to note that this list isn’t exhaustive. We encourage you to find unique festive season marketing ideas and sales opportunities relevant to the countries where you advertise. Here are other dates that you may want to consider:
November
1: All Saints’ Day (France, Germany, Spain)
1–2: Día de los Muertos (Mexico)
5: Guy Fawkes Day/Bonfire Night (UK)
18–21: Buen Fin (Mexico)
24: Thanksgiving (US)
22–28: White Friday (UAE)
December
2: National Day (UAE)
15: Dubai Shopping Festival (UAE)
18–26: Hanukkah (Worldwide)
26: Boxing Day (Australia, Canada, UK)
January
1: New Year’s Day (worldwide)
By recognising key dates in different countries, you can plan to make the most of increased traffic and interest when customers might be shopping for items like yours. Everything else comes to planning and executing the best strategies for your brand, and we can show you how to get started with that.
Festive season marketing preparation
Plan and execute advertising campaigns continuously to ensure that your brand and products are making the most of increased traffic and interest on Amazon during the festive shopping season.
Starting as early as possible:
Identify all key sales events and festive seasons that are relevant to your brand and products in the countries where you’re advertising.
Map out what you’d like to achieve on each key date to help reach your seasonal goals.
Set up a budget that can help you support an always-on campaign with targeted peak efforts.
Three festive season marketing tips for Sponsored Products
With millions of people shopping on Amazon during the shopping season, Sponsored Products can help you stand out and put your products in front of shoppers who are ready to buy.
Here are some tips to help you make the most of Sponsored Products this season:
- Set a daily budget that’s high enough to keep your ads showing and not miss out on potential sales. Many customers shop for and buy products on Amazon during the shopping season, so your usual daily budget might run out in the middle of the day.
- To optimise for sales, use Dynamic bids – up and down. With this bidding strategy, Amazon Ads raises your bids (by a maximum of 100%) in real time when your ad may be more likely to lead to a sale, and lower your bids when less likely to convert to a sale.
- Make sure that you use the different keyword match types to help refine your campaign. We recommend starting with broad match, which offers the widest traffic exposure, and then reviewing your campaign performance reports to see which specific terms are performing best. To target those terms, add phrase match – which means your ad may appear when a customer’s shopping query uses your exact phrase or sequence of words in your keyword – and exact match – which means a customer's shopping query must match your keyword exactly. Together, they’ll help you reach relevant customers and drive more sales.
Learn more about preparing and launching your festive season campaigns with the help of Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and Stores. We’ll help you reach audiences who are browsing deals or shopping for items to buy, plus offer key tactics for monitoring your festive season marketing campaigns, checking your reports and refining throughout the season.