Are you prepared for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Here’s a last-minute checklist to make sure you’re ready…
2022 Dates
This year Black Friday takes place on November 25th. Sales usually continue to run through the weekend, and Cyber Monday takes place on November 28th. At Envision Horizons we typically start to see sales ramp up the evening of Thanksgiving (November 24th) at around 6pm.
This is an extremely important series of days for Amazon sellers, so make sure you’re fully prepared. Take a look at our Black Friday checklist to ensure you are setting yourself up for success…
Confirm your Q4 advertising budget
- It is important to fine-tune your budget and bids for peak events. Amazon recommends a budget that is about 2-4x your typical budget for high traffic days.
Confirm your account health
- Look at shipping performance and Voice of the Consumer
- Make sure your Account Health Assurance is active – Amazon announced a new, free benefit for sellers called Account Health Assurance, which formalizes our commitment to not deactivate a seller’s account as long as they work with us to resolve any issues.
Confirm no listings are suppressed or suspended
- During the event be prepared to monitor your account and address fire drills. Every hour a listing is down immediately translates to lost revenue. Read abouthow Envision Horizons handles suppressions.
Optimize your PPC campaigns
- Make sure your ads are optimized for conversions and that you’re not wasting money on keywords that generate little to no sales.
- Have advertising automation setup on all campaigns.
Conduct a PDP audit and act on the findings by updating your listings
- Review your product titles, bullet points, product descriptions, images, and A+ content/EBC
- Optimize your imagesand utilize AB testing, especially the hero image, for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Make sure everything is optimized for mobile.
- Add festive details for the holidays – add a ribbon/bow or a graphic on why your product is giftable.
Conduct a Keyword Audit
- Review how many keywords your products index for compared to competitors, and discover what top keywords you are not indexing for.
- Act on the findings by updating your copy and keyword strategy.
Optimize your Storefront
- Create a page in your Brand Store dedicated to highlighting deals available during Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Add a holiday gift guide to your Store.
Create Sponsored Brand Ads Driving to Storefront
- Send traffic to your Holiday deals page or gift guide.
Get Your Coupons Ready / Organize your Promotions
- The submission window for most Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals is closed. However, you can still set up Prime-exclusive deals and coupons or even just discount your prices during the day.
- Couponscan go live in as little as 6 hours
- Prime-exclusive dealsdifferentiate your product from those with coupons and are featured on a separate page for Prime-exclusive only deals.
Have a Q4 media plan in place
- Drive traffic from your social channels to Amazon.
- UtilizeAmazon Poststo promote your deals.
Get in Touch with Influencers / Drive External Traffic to Amazon
- Driving external traffic to Amazon is key.
- Check out our best practices for using influencers to drive traffic to Amazon.
- Schedule Amazon Live influencers to host livestreams during the sales event.
Track your Sales and Performance with a Tool LikemyHorizons
- Black Friday through Cyber Monday is an important time to be closely monitoring your performance. Make changes to your ads or PPC campaigns as needed.
- If your inventory runs out at a faster rate than expected, plan to send more inventory to FBA or plan to ship the products yourself using third-party fulfillment or your own warehouse.
- If your sales are slow consider reviewing your PPC campaigns and increasing bids for certain keywords.
- Monitor the status and overall performance of your account with a tool likemyHorizons. Take care of any problems that arise immediately so that there is no downtime for your listings. At Envision Horizons we offer24/7 coverage.
Watch Your IPI Score
- Maintain an high IPI score to avoid stock limits and overage fees this holiday season. Check out our blog on how toincrease restock limitsfor more information.
Ship your Inventory in Time:
- By now, you should have sent in your holiday inventory. Envision Horizons clients send inventory in before these critical dates…
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday: November 2
- Christmas: December 1
Download the checklist PDF here…Envision Horizons Black Friday Checklist
Use myHorizons During Amazon Black Friday for Free
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