4 Strategies to Boost On-Site Subscriber Revenue on Prime Day

We know you’re likely gearing up for Prime Day sales on Amazon, but have you considered extending the excitement to your site with a sale of your own?

Amazon’s two-day Prime Day sales promotion generated a whopping $12.7 billion last year, with customers purchasing over 375 million items. With that level of volume, your brand deserves a slice of the pie, too. 

Whether you sell directly on Amazon or just want to get in on the fun with a sale of your own, we’ve got you covered with strategies that your brand can use to capitalize on Prime Day profits – and how to create added incentives for your subscribers.

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Wait – Should I Sell on Amazon?

Many brands choose to sell their products on both their website and Amazon in an increasing effort to meet shoppers where they are and streamline the customer journey. Selling on Amazon can boost brand awareness and discoverability, increasing sales and web traffic.

On the other hand, selling on Amazon comes with a loss in customer data and additional 3rd party fees and costs.

When customers shop directly from your site, your brand can collect valuable insights into purchase behavior and demographic information alongside contact info, including email, phone number, and mailing address. This information is necessary to implement post-purchase flows, build a long-term relationship, and grow LTV. When customers shop through Amazon, your brand forfeits these data-rich benefits. As a result, every brand has a different approach when selling on a 3rd party platform like Amazon.

Regardless of whether your brand is selling on Amazon, our Prime Day best practices capitalize on the high-purchase intent of this event with tips and tricks geared toward maximizing your owned marketing channels – including email, SMS, social, and directly on your subscriber Customer Portal.

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4 Strategies to Extend the Prime Day Deals to Your Site:

1 – Get Creative with Your Sales Promotion

Will your brand offer a blanket sitewide discount to all customers? Should you bundle specific summer-related products? What about a unique deal for subscribers?

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box on your site’s Prime Day deals! Offer customers and subscribers a variety of compelling offers guaranteed to move some inventory.

By offering unique deals for one-time customers versus your subscribers and offering a deal beyond a standard sitewide discount, you’re more likely to excite shoppers and get them to convert beyond the 20% discount they’ve seen a million times before.

Our retention experts recommend choosing one to two of the following price strategies –

• Offer a limited-time product bundle combining new or existing products that have yet to be released on your site in one convenient pack. To seal the deal, offer a slight discount on this bundle.
• Install a clock widget on your homepage either as a banner or a popup ad that tells customers that the first 100 orders today will receive a crazy deep discount of 40% off their order while all others will receive 20% sitewide. This strategy adds a sense of urgency that prompts customers to act, while also taking a playful spin beyond the traditional 20% sitewide sales offer that customers are used to.
• Announce a limited-edition product, exclusive to Prime Day! Alternatively, if your brand is low on inventory on an old product SKU, you could use this sales event as a chance to “bring it back one last time” as a final surprise for customers. For example, bring back a limited-time flavor or fan favorite from a past promotion for one last run, like an exclusive summer Mango flavored seltzer.
• Buy-One-Get-One (BOGO) deals work great for big sales events, encouraging customers to purchase more products in bulk at a perceived better value. 
• A/B test a BOGO vs. a sitewide sale vs. a timed, tiered discount promotion to see which resonates more for your customers and subscribers ahead of time. If your brand has run versions of these promos in the past, consider past data trends to decide which sale will likely have the highest conversion rate for Prime Day.

2 – Offer Your Own “Prime Day” Free Shipping on All Orders

Shipping is expensive – and not every brand can offer complimentary free shipping on all customer orders. If your brand is in the latter camp, offer all customers free shipping for Prime Day as a playful mimic of Amazon’s two-day free shipping for Prime members.

By leveraging one of our sales tactics combined with free shipping, your brand is sure to see success for your sitewide takeover of Prime Day.

3 – Extend the Sale Beyond Amazon’s Two-Day Promo

Extend your sitewide sale beyond Amazon’s two-day promotional window. This way, your shoppers have extra time to decide and purchase. We’d recommend waiting until Prime Day officially ends, then sending an email or SMS blast announcing a “Prime Day extension” exclusively available on your site.

Want to gear this promotion toward subscribers? Make the extended sale only available to subscribers or offer the extended sale sitewide but give subscribers an additional incentive or better deal to keep everyone happy.

4 – Incorporate Prime Day-related Messaging into Your Campaign

Capitalize on this purchase occasion by offering customers a better discount than competing products on Amazon. For example, share a limited-time code with your shoppers using Amazon-centric keywords like PRIME or PRIME20 for 20% off their sitewide orders for a limited time.

For subscribers, offer an even greater discount than the sitewide offer to ensure your most valuable customers feel appreciated during this sale. 

To accomplish this, we recommend running a sitewide promotion directly on your website that capitalizes on the high-purchase intent of shoppers on Prime Day. Leveraging a limited-time homepage popup, banner ad, or a unique landing page, your brand can use language like:

• “We’re having our own Prime Day sale! For a limited time, BOGO on products sitewide.”
• “Until Prime Day ends, receive a special offer on subscriptions for an extra 10% off in addition to your usual 10% subscriber discount. Act fast, once this deal is gone, it’s GONE!”

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Prime Day Checklist: What to Do Before the Big Day

Now that you’ve got some ideas floating around for what deals and messaging you want to offer to your shoppers and subscribers, let’s take a step back and make sure you’ve got everything dialed in before the big sale with our Prime Day checklist – 

• Check your inventory levels – the last thing you want to do is sell out too soon!
• Prioritize specific SKUs – ask yourself which products (if not all) will best resonate with new and existing customers on Prime Day. Are there certain products you want to prioritize in your on-site sale?
• Optimize your PDP pages for Prime Day messaging, sales language, and more
• Plan ahead! If you’re running paid social around Prime Day, get your creative and ad messaging locked and loaded before the sale begins! 
• Start A/B testing your ad creative early. Trial run some of your ads in the days leading up to Prime Day to see which have the highest sales conversion. When the sale begins, ramp spend accordingly
• Check your customer reviews – Are your reviews looking good? Be sure to address negative reviews or customer complaints before the big day.

Choosing to sell directly on Amazon is not for everyone and depends on many variables unique to your business model and overall revenue strategy. But in whichever case, these Prime Day strategies are bound to boost your brand’s midsummer revenue and help give your subscribers a delightful shopping experience.

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For additional strategies around boosting AOV & LTV, check out our other posts here.