When it comes to budgeting for promotional days during Q4 (i.e Black Friday, Cyber Monday and now Prime Day), I usually strategize for the entire month.
Recently, Amazon launched a Budget Report (beta) for Sponsored Products that I've been using to analyze how July's Prime Day performed using Average Time In Budget, Estimated Missed Sales and Estimated Missed Impressions, to name a few.
The graph below shows that campaigns were in budget an av. of 90% of the time which indicates that daily budget allocated was fairly good. However, we can also see that the av. time in budget declines during Prime Day week and the week after:
Initially, the budget for the week prior and post Prime Day was almost the same, but the strategy was different. Before Prime Day, the strategy is to maximize brand awareness with DSP, Sponsored Brands and Display campaigns. During the week of Prime Day, budget is shifted to consideration and conversion campaigns. Post Prime Day, the priority is to retarget Prime Day traffic with DSP.
Some learnings:
Increase budget for Prime Day, more than 50% of your total monthly budget
Increase budget for the week after Prime Day to capitalize on retargeting Prime Day traffic
If the advertised brand or product is fairly popular, competitors can get aggressive bidding against your brand name more than you do. So it's recommended to budget accordingly to protect your real estate
Increase budget for Sponsored Brands and Display campaigns to maximize New-To-Brand sales
I'm craving to know how others plan for Prime Day, so we can create a process that better prepares us for promotional days. I'd love to read your way below.