Amazon Digest - 12.01.24

Writing this live to share some initial results and observations of Amazon Black Friday.

For the US readers, I hope you had a chance to enjoy time with family, friends, good food, and also see sales roll in for your brand

Offer

For the month of December I am offering ‘pick my brain’ consultative sessions. Want to maximize your holidays sales? Talk through Amazon channel decisions or results? Need an outside perspective on your Amazon performance? Here is a link to book a 1 hour consulting call with me.

Amazon Black Friday Debrief

Black Friday sales kicked off 11/21, and will end with Cyber Monday December 2nd EOD.

There is an obvious domination of Black Friday (and now Cyber Monday) Deals on the 1st page of search results, regardless of a category. Running an event deal does increase both ranking and conversion.

Browsing CPG product pages below $20 price point showed a third of products with a BF Deal, another third with some type of regular coupon, and the rest with no promotion.

PacVue released some early data, which does correlated with our observations:

• Amazon ad spending during Black Friday 2024 rose nearly 30% compared to 2023. A result of more competition

• Cost-per-click (CPC) increased by 9.9% year-over-year, reaching $1.89/average click

• Click-through rates (CTR) fell by 7% compared to 2023, highlighting challenges in ad performance despite increased investments. Sophistication of brands with video, images, content in general is making consumers harder to pause and click

•  Amazon’s Sponsored Brands ads saw a 6.5% rise in CTR, outpacing standard Sponsored Products and achieving a higher average CPC of $2.55. This is interesting. Because it can indicate consumers intentional searches of deals for specific brands, rather than a deal on an item they want

   

  Black Friday Month

  Remember when Black Friday was truly Black Friday?

  Amazon, while not the entirety of e-commerce, has undeniably shaped it.

  About 6 years ago Amazon began pushing Black Friday deals earlier—mid-week before Thanksgiving, in fact—setting a precedent that other retailers to follow.

  By 2020-2021, giants like Walmart, Target, and Macy’s were rolling out Black Friday previews and early discounts as early as mid-November.

  Now, we don’t just have Black Friday. We have Black Friday Month. A marathon of markdowns long before we even hit December’s peak holiday shopping days.

  If French’s mustard can run a Black Friday deal on their mustard discounted to $1.59 on Amazon, thus making it a negative sale, most small brands can not. And should not.

  There is a balance between not simply pulling demand forward with discounts for shoppers that were going to buy anyway and bringing more sales and new customers via Black Friday.

  There is also using new traffic from Black Friday for re-targetting that will convert later in December. Abandoned carts to eventually buy.

  There is a new brand launch on Black Friday, coupled with advertising, to sell thousands of units in 3 days. Not a bad start.

  There is focusing on just few keywords to go heavy on during Black Friday, and not worry about bidding on most because that would blow up ad budget.

  There is place for all these ways to leverage Black Friday period.

  But as a consumer I also noticed that in today’s consumer abundance my shopping attention span can focus only on few brands I like. That I buy regardless of a discount. And I may wait until Black Friday to buy more of.

  So I wonder if we at some point will reach a pullback to short, truly limited-time promotion period that we as consumers will also be ok with.

  When pre-Black Friday, early access, preview deals won’t blur into Black Friday, and then into Cyber Monday deals. When brands will not feel pressure to promote for days, during a period of time determined over hundred of years ago. In association with a financial crisis of the gold rush, nonetheless.

  This year I did not recommend to run Black Friday/Cyber Monday Deals for the full period of 10 days to a single client. Only for the true Black Friday through Cyber Monday. It simply didn’t create business sense to go with what Amazon wants brands to do.

  There is a stronger argument to build a brand that can run a promotion that is well-timed for the brand. Whether it’s in December, May, or August.

  Perhaps it’s my consumer fatigue interfering with my professional instincts, but after years in the space, and plenty of ‘we had 10,20X of daily volume on Cyber Monday’ case studies I realized it’s harder, but more valuable help a brand figure out how to operate and grow profitably on Amazon regardless of a season.

Saludos,

Irina