Dear Retail Media: Amazon Prime Day Is Nigh

Treat yo’self: Not to box seats, diamonds and spas, but to a retail media strategy mix that aligns with Prime Day, which is all but certain to land in July again this year. But how do you actually forecast, strategize and prepare for Prime Day given the exact dates are still TBD—especially if it’s still unclear whether your brand should participate or go head-to-head, and whether Prime Day incrementality actually exists at all? First, I promise you there is incrementality. Eyeballs are online and people are “primed” to buy. As a performance marketer, I’ve lived through this on the Google side, the Amazon side and now the retail media side. There is definitive movement. Is it incremental? Or does it just pull sales forward? Yes. For many, the halo effect is real and incremental. But how can you make the halo glow stronger and perhaps even according to your business goals? The good news is the expansion of self-serve retail media platforms and ad types have made it easier than ever to activate and pivot on a shorter timeline. Do this now Google shipment cut-off dates for FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) or discount deadlines give you the best guesses for when the actual Prime Day might be. It’s not a total mystery; you should be able to land within a two-week window to be able to prepare. Ask your retailer partners—media, merchants, besties—if they are planning on a Prime Day-style event this year. Make sure they know you are planning to amplify the event from a retail media standpoint. You never know what additional opportunities are available, and they’re going to have to turn those budgets, banners, bids and selection of products around quickly. A ready brand partner moves to the top of the list! Prep the products—physically and online Have inventory available, as well as any email blasts, discount codes or coupons, and try to align that timing to when all those eyeballs will be online—I know, easier said than done. There’s still time to set up Target Circle promotions, affiliate offers (hello, newly launching Ibotta-Walmart partnership) or coupons in general. If you’re DTC or also have DTC business, echo those promotions across your Google Ads and Facebook advertising budgets—especially if there are exclusive variants or product types on your site that a consumer is looking for outside of the retailer environment. Planning for Prime Day from a product-planning standpoint outside of Amazon is tough. This isn’t an event with much advance notice where you can ship additional inventory into a store or a third-party logistics manager in a timely manner, at least not at a significant volume. And you probably didn’t have a conversation about this a year ago with the retailer’s merchandising team. But if you are a drop-ship vendor or are capable of handling fulfillment to enable online expansion, like more product pages or variations of products that are already live on retailer sites, then this could be a good time to do that. And of course, if you are a marketplace participant, like Walmart, Target Plus, eBay or Wayfair, you have even more flexibility to adjust that assortment prior to Prime Day. Start spinning your own flywheel All of these types of agile marketing are fully possible now because of the expansion of self-serve retail media platforms and ad types. It’s now easier and faster than ever to activate and pivot with limited lead time. So prepare your budget accordingly. Go easy at the start of Prime Day month and add some additional dollars during the main event for search-based ad units, obviously. But if you have any creative needs or requests for self-serve onsite display options (like Walmart and Instacart), you should start lining those up now. On the programmatic side, we now have Walmart's DSP with The Trade Desk as a self-service option with a fairly short runway to launch with Walmart Connect (assuming you have Trade Desk access now). If you’ve already integrated, get those audience requests in and creative ready. And for an even faster turnaround, go with categories and third-party audiences already in The Trade Desk. You can build out campaigns, schedule them or leave them as is until you’re ready. There are also self-service options with Target Roundel, Kroger KPM 84.51° and Walgreens that are open to the DSP of your choice. Each one has a slightly different setup and turnaround time. But all can move quickly, especially compared to the options that were available this time last year before Prime Day 2021. Yes, things are moving fast! Have the DSP of your choice ready to go (like The Trade Desk or Google Display & Video 360), get creative ad units lined up and the audiences requested from the retailer—or make plans to use out-of-the-box or third-party audiences. Is Prime Day incremental? If you’re able to set up and review sales and traffic increases—both DTC and impressions or clicks from retail media campaigns—to deduce the effect of incremental, great. If not, we do know that logically and holistically traffic and sales are up. Did it pull sales forward? You should be able to get a very definitive sense of that when the month closes and from what the following month brings. Even if it’s not monumentally incremental—we all know Amazon is the real winner of the day—you can pull forward a lot of learnings for your Q4 budgeting, creative conversion rates and engagement, plus when self-service or managed campaigns are done, you’re ready to go logistically. You could call Prime Day your “Holiday Preview”—at least it’s giving you a high-traffic shopping season comparison within the same year instead of year-over-year, which in retail media has definitely not been a particularly useful view given the speed of change, volume and general volatility. Now go out and make your Prime Day incremental!