Promotional marketing has fast become critical to any retailer's multi-channel marketing strategy, and running promotions on Amazon can be a great way to attract more customers, increase basket size, drive feedback and reviews for your products and set your listings apart from the competition.

Including a thorough promotional plan for your business on Amazon can have a long-standing impact and it is recommended to set aside a budget for running promotions and marketing exclusively on Amazon to help drive platform specific objectives, particularly around key sales events and holidays.

Why run promotions on Amazon?

Strategic marketing placements
Increase sales
Clear overstocked inventory
Increase product conversions
Benefit from ‘halo effect’
Win the buy box

Codisto does not currently support built-in promotions management. You’ll need to manage any promotional campaigns from within Amazon.

*note* Always be sure to review your campaigns before launching.

Lighting deals

Lighting deals are high visibility deals, specified by the seller and approved by Amazon to be displayed on the deals page for a period of time, usually 4-12 hours (unless stock runs out earlier). Amazon’s deals page is one of the most frequented pages on the site and buyers are restricted to one unit per customer, maximising your customer reach.

Running Lighting deals could be a good strategy for sellers looking to clear out excess stock or to drive increased visibility towards specific products. An interesting benefit that running lighting deals can have is referred to as the “halo effect”. This is a temporary boost to your Best Seller Rank (BSR) attributed to Lighting deals that can have a lasting effect on your discoverability and product sales.

Features

Deal displayed on Amazon deals page for period of time
Deal price, percentage discount, percentage of sold units, time left until deal ends
‘Add to cart’ available directly from deals placement
Lighting deals typically cost the seller about $150 to run (charged by Amazon)

Criteria:

Professional seller account
Minimum of 3 star product rating
Must be Prime
Inventory minimum

Setting up Lighting Deals

In Seller Central, you’ll find an “Advertising” tab > Lighting Deals.
From there, select the product(s) you’d like to create a lighting deal for, set your lowest price and preference for the week you’d like to run your deal.
The only limitation being that you cannot choose the exact date and time that your lighting deal will run, which means it could run in the middle of the night.

Coupons

Coupons are a great way to drive sales, traffic and brand awareness by encouraging customers to make their purchase immediately. Coupons appear in multiple placements across Amazon and can also be used within your external marketing campaigns (social media, emails etc.) making for a very versatile means of driving traffic to your products.

Sellers are charged $0.60 every time a coupon is redeemed. You will need to factor this cost into account when trying to sell your products.

While most Amazon promotions tools enable you to promote specific products, Coupons let you target specific products as well as audiences, allowing for a much more strategic approach.

Features

• Create a coupon with a flat dollar discount or a percentage off discount
• Target specific demographics 
• Create a discount between 5%-80% off
• Set budget and timeline of your campaigns (up to 3 months)
• Coupon visibility on deals page, search results, product page, coupon landing page

Types of coupons:

• Link coupons - Generates a link that buyers must click in order to receive the discount
• Clip coupons - Digital coupons that must be “clipped” online and then added to your cart to receive the discount.

Importantly, Amazon charges $0.60 every time a coupon is redeemed so it is important to factor this cost in when planning a coupon promotion.

Criteria

• Professional seller account
• Seller feedback rating of 3.5/5
• Discount must be between 5%-80%

Setting up Coupons

• In Seller Central, you’ll find an “Advertising” tab > Coupons.
• From there, select the product(s) you’d like to add to your coupon
• Set your money off or percentage off discount, budget, coupon redemption limits
• Setup coupon title, targeted customers and duration
• Review and submit

Percentage off

The most frequently used Amazon promotional tool is to offer discounts to buyers in the form of a percentage off tiered discount, encouraging customers to purchase multiple items to receive a bigger saving. Percentage off discounts are ideal for sellers looking to increase basket size, save on shipping and accelerate inventory clearance.

It’s important to assess which percentage off campaign structure is right for your business. Percentage off discounts give you control of which products you want to offer a percentage off and the type of promotional discount offered e.g. “for every item purchased, get X% off,” “buy X number of items, get X% off,” or “spend $X, get X% off.”.  If you prefer, you can also restrict your buyers to claiming the promotion only once in order to extend the reach/duration of your campaign.

A limitation of Percentage off placements is the visibility of the promotion often being quite difficult to spot on the product page.

Features

• Tier-based discounts on selected products
• Create a “claim” code or have promotion auto-apply
• Restrict to single-use or allow “group” use (claim multiple times)
• Visibility on product page
• Include internal use description for promotion
• Tracking ID automatically included by Amazon

Setting up Percentage off

• In Seller Central, you’ll find an “Advertising” tab > Promotions.
• Create promotion > Percentage off
• From there, select the product(s) you’d like to add - You may need to create a new product selection based on SKU, ASIN, Brand name etc.
• Choose the conditions of the promotion, duration, and any additional options.
• Review and submit

Buy one get one

Buy One Get One (BOGO) promotions are exactly as they sound and allow you to offer free products when shoppers meet your minimum eligibility criteria. BOGOs are a great way to launch new products and drive velocity on the platform.

 

Due to the popularity of free items, however, it is important to be mindful of your use of BOGO in order to prevent your inventory from clearing faster than planned (or with minimal margins). We recommend testing your BOGO campaigns for short periods of time until you gain an understanding of the market response to your promotions. Alternatively, utilise this strategy specifically for slow moving or end of life stock where margins/average sale price is less of a concern.

Setting up BOGO

• In Seller Central, you’ll find an “Advertising” tab > Promotions.
• Create promotion > Buy One Get One
• From there, select the product(s) you’d like to add - You may need to create a new product selection based on SKU, ASIN, Brand name etc.
• Choose the conditions of the promotion, duration, and any additional options.
• Review and submit

Free shipping

For sellers not yet approved for Prime or with no intention of registering, offering Free Shipping is a straight-forward promotional tool to help compete against Prime sellers. Being one of the major buyer preferences when shopping online (particularly on Amazon purchases, hence 150m+ Prime members worldwide), free shipping is a powerful tool to attract buyers. 

 

Sellers have multiple services to choose from:

• Expedited
• Next day
• Priority
• Second day
• Standard shipping

Free Shipping is restricted to FBM products and allows sellers to specify a criteria to activate free shipping for the buyer:

• Purchase at least X quantity of items to receive free shipping
• Spend at least $X to receive free shipping

Create a “claim” code or have your free shipping promotion auto-apply at checkout. You’ll also have the ability to restrict your claim code to a single-use or allow unrestricted use throughout the duration of the promotion.

Setting up free shipping

• In Seller Central, you’ll find an “Advertising” tab > Promotions.
• Create promotion > Free shipping
• From there, select the product(s) you’d like to add - You may need to create a new product selection based on SKU, ASIN, Brand name etc.
• Choose the conditions of the promotion, duration, and any additional options.
• Review and submit