Guide
Make the most of the holiday shopping season with these performance-boosting tips
Are you ready for holiday marketing? See more in our complete guide to seasonal advertising.
With the holiday season upon us, customers are browsing products and researching brands to purchase gifts for their friends and family. Even after the peak Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale events, shoppers continue to make purchases online for last-minute gifts and seasonal deals. Make the most of this year’s gifting season with these marketing tips and build a full-funnel approach, connecting your brand with both new and existing customers.
Build awareness with Sponsored Brands video, audio, Twitch, and Fire TV
Leading up to the peak traffic holiday shopping period, engage with customers wherever they spend time. Consider including awareness-driving placements in your holiday marketing campaigns to ensure your audience has your brand and deals top of mind.
Sponsored Brands video ads are a great way to educate and engage customers directly on Amazon. Content should be educational and demonstrative, featuring the product prominently within the first few seconds of the ad. Keep the video brief and focused at a length between 15 and 30 seconds. Videos should work without sound, and onscreen text should be easily legible on a mobile device. Lastly, consider adding an end card to allow for some breathing room, or get creative and make your loop seamless.
Incorporate audio ads to interact with listeners during this shopping season. Be sure to keep the audio informative and straightforward, highlighting promotions and deals. Use music and sound effects sparingly to ensure the content is not lost. Finally, at the end of the ad, include the brand name and a clear call-to-action (CTA) to drive conversions. Learn more about Amazon Connected Audio Customers.
Leverage high-impact placements, like on Twitch and Fire TV, to maximize creative possibilities and generate incremental reach. Entertainment placements wherever they spend time can help grow your audience and be leveraged to promote your deals and products surrounding the event. Pricing and savings messages must be clear, accurate, and consistent with the ad copy and the landing page. Special offers, particularly promotion sales, must clearly and accurately describe any benefit advertised as being part of the offer. Lastly, ads must always communicate when prices are subject to change and if restrictions apply.
Leverage Responsive eCommerce creatives to support deals
Maximize your holiday promotions by focusing on the deal badging functionality of Responsive eCommerce creatives (REC). REC display ads automatically pull information from the promoted product detail pages, including the strike-through pricing and deal badging if there is an applicable discount. If your product qualifies for Deal of the Day, Lightning Deal, or Best Deal, the creative will automatically render a deal badge in the top corner of the ad. REC deal badging is only available on the “Shop now” variation.
REC ads also hold up to 20 ASINs and are out-of-stock-aware, hiding any products that are no longer in stock. This functionality can help reduce the risk of promoting products that have sold out, ensuring your ads are efficient and compliant for the entirety of the event.
Include savings messaging to help drive conversions
Help your standard display ads stand out with promotional messaging. When incorporating deals messaging in your creatives, be sure to follow the following criteria:
1. Confirm that ASINs featured in the banner offer the discount mentioned in the banner
If you advertise a range of discounts (by displaying “up to” or “from,” plus a percentage discount), at least 10% of all the ASINs in the promotion selection must be offered at or above the maximum discount advertised. The remaining 90% of all ASINs must be offered at various discount rates applied in a balanced manner. Example: If you advertise savings of “up to 50%,” at least 10% of the ASINs should be offered with at least 50% off.
2. Ensure that pricing and savings claims are exactly the same across the ad and the landing page
If the ad promotes a percentage saving (for example, “10% off”), the landing page must also reference the percentage saving, not only the price saving. If the claim on the ad becomes inaccurate due to dynamic pricing on the landing page, creatives must be paused and updated to use qualified claims (for example, “Save $XX or more” or “Save up to XX%”).
3. Highlight hero products and deals on your Store
Surrounding the holidays, shoppers are frequently engaging and browsing across Amazon. Showcase your promotions and key products to help optimize your Store with these design tips.
Mobile focus: Customers can access Stores on mobile devices as well as desktops. Be sure to consider this in the design, and use the preview function for both mobile and desktop to ensure a consistent experience.
Brand and product balance: Stores exist as a holistic brand showcase, so this should be the main focus. However, the product should be easily available and the unique selling proposition (USP) clearly explained.
Simplified customer experience: Design choices should prioritize the customer journey over art elements that risk over-complicating the message or experience.
Promotional messaging: Lastly, keep in mind that promotional messaging is permitted on Stores, but only when used with the Featured Deals widget, which will automatically pull in active deals. The Featured Deals widget should be shown as the first product selection tile on the page, followed by the Product Grid. The Product Grid should also include the ASIN list in the Featured Deals widget.
