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Prime Day 2025 isn’t about spending more — it’s about targeting smarter.
Precision is the name of the game this year, and the brands that win will be the ones who plan with intent. With Amazon expanding Prime Day to a four-day event for the first time, the stakes — and opportunities — are higher than ever.
We kicked off this two-part series with a deep dive into the operational, promotional, and organic tactics that set high-performing brands apart.
Now in Part 2, we’re diving into paid media.
Backed by Acadia’s top strategists, this guide breaks down the ad strategies that will help you drive results before, during, and after Prime Day.
Before Prime Day: Key Milestones For Brands
The buzz around Prime Day has already begun. Brands are asking: What’s different this year? How do I adjust my budget? Which creatives do I need to develop now?
Brands and agency teams must align on all deliverables, data, and creative execution to avoid bottlenecks and maximize readiness.
Here’s a breakdown of the key pre–Prime Day milestones:
BRAND DELIVERABLES: WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
1) Creative Readiness: Brands need to prepare the right assets if they plan to run ads that include Prime Day-specific messaging. These creatives must follow unique specifications Amazon requires, so the brand’s creative team—or the agency’s creative team—needs to be aligned early to avoid delays.
2) Promo ASIN List: Brands should confirm which ASINs will be on promotion during Prime Day. This information allows the media team to target spend on high-priority products and tailor campaigns accordingly.
2) Margin Guidance: 2025 is bringing an increased focus on profitability. In this context, brands should communicate rough margin data on promoted ASINs, which helps the media team balance aggressiveness with efficiency.
4) Budget Guidance: Define profitability thresholds and any flexible spend options.
MEDIA PREP DELIVERABLES: WHAT YOUR AGENCY SHOULD BE DOING
1) Data Collection + Historical Analysis: Review past performance (best-selling ASINs, hourly peak selling times, most effective keywords and campaigns, past campaign ROAS and TACoS under promotional conditions), identify what worked and where there were breakdowns.
2) Lead-In Strategy Development: Build a strategy to warm up audiences, increase product visibility, and expand remarketing pools ahead of the event.
3) Creative Submission & Testing: Submit creatives early and, if possible, test them weeks before Prime Day. This builds familiarity and ensures all assets are moderated, approved, and in market-ready shape.
4) Campaign Creation: Prepare new campaigns specifically for Prime Day execution. These may include campaigns based on past performers or aligned with newly promoted ASINs.
5) Budgeting Planning: This is one of the most important areas of preparation. With the Prime Day event now four days long, budgeting needs to be more robust and flexible than in years past.
A New Game Plan for Your Advertising Strategy
THE KEYWORD HERE ISN’T ‘FOUR DAYS’, THE KEYWORD IS ‘SUMMER’
While 4-day promotions are familiar territory for brands given experience with events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Prime Day has traditionally served as a mid-year sales accelerator. This year’s extended format signals a broader strategic shift from Amazon, aimed at boosting demand during a season that’s typically slower.
That’s why comparing it to other 4-day Amazon promotions might be missing the mark—the timing and seasonal dynamics for brands are different.
What does it mean for brands?
- Consumers may not act with the urgency they show during BFCM
- Your messaging must do more work to generate excitement
- Brand familiarity and pre-event awareness will play a bigger role in click-through and conversion
There is no way of knowing exactly how consumer behavior will shift–if shoppers will spread out their purchases, or go hard on Day 1 and taper off.
This year's Prime Day introduces:
- The risk of increased customer fatigue over four days, making early engagement and brand recall critical
- Wider variability in performance
- Greater need for automation to manage bidding and budgets effectively over a longer timeline
STRATEGIC ADJUSTMENTS FOR A LONGER EVENT
To accommodate the additional days, the core strategy pivots from a short-term sprint to more of a four-day endurance race. That means pacing budgets, staggering creative, and staying responsive to live performance data.
Here’s how agencies are adjusting their playbooks:
1. Leeway Budgeting
Building in a “leeway budget” offers a flexible reserve of funds that can be deployed dynamically across the four days. This provides the option to double down on breakout ASINs or recover spend if a day underperforms.
It’s essentially a buffer on top of your planned Prime Day budget, giving you the room to capitalize on momentum or course-correct when reality diverges from projections.
2. Assumptions on Daily Pacing
Based on experience and early hypotheses, here’s a working model for how sales may unfold:
- Day 1: High urgency, early conversions, and the largest single-day sales volume
- Day 2: Sustained interest, possibly the second-highest day
- Day 3: Potential lull or “soft middle”
- Day 4: Surge toward the end of day, especially in West Coast evening hours
In the absence of precedent, brands and agencies must treat this Prime Day as a live experiment and document everything for stronger planning in future extended tentpole events.
Harnessing Amazon's Latest Ad Developments for Prime Day Success
This year’s Prime Day will also be the first major event where advanced tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) audiences are widely available to nearly all brands, not just top-tier players.
In previous years, AMC was primarily used for high-level analytics or custom DSP work. Now, with AMC audience integration directly into Sponsored Products, brands can target specific cohorts they have nurtured or created.
This unlocks a key advantage: the ability to boost your bids selectively based on the value of the audience being targeted, all without removing the broader keyword-based targeting structure.
- In a branded campaign, your ads typically show to both existing customers and new prospects.
- Using AMC, you can build a custom audience of shoppers who are new to your brand, and apply a higher bid boost for them because they represent incremental growth.
- Simultaneously, you can apply a lower bid for shoppers already familiar with your brand, helping you maintain efficiency and control customer acquisition costs.
This kind of audience-tiered strategy helps balance profitability with growth, especially in a budget-constrained, high-competition environment like Prime Day.
Note: AMC does not replace keyword targeting—it enhances it.
You still need to:
- Run keyword-based campaigns (branded, category, competitor, long-tail)
- Optimize placement bids for top-of-search
- Monitor search term performance in real time
What AMC gives you is the ability to influence how much you pay for different types of customers within those campaigns.
You are allowing yourself to spend more for the shoppers you really want to convert, and spend less on those you’re likely to reach anyway.
Using AMC = Precision without overspending.
Media Deployment & Lead-In Tactics to Enter July Prepared
The groundwork you lay in May and early June determines your brand’s visibility, consumer recall, and conversion efficiency during the high-velocity days of Prime Day.
One of the biggest pitfalls we see? Waiting too long to start lead-in tactics.
⌛ Key Lead-In Actions:
| Timeline | Focus | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Now (Mid–Late May) | Launch upper-funnel campaigns | Generate awareness and consideration |
| Early June | Deepen audience targeting & scale visibility | Drive familiarity and product engagement |
| Late June | Begin throttling spend into test placements | Optimize performance and identify creatives that click |
1) Shift Budget Up the Funnel
A common mistake we see is front-loading all investment into Prime Day itself. In reality, building demand beforehand is what allows you to capture it efficiently once the event begins.
Recommended lead-in investments:
- Sponsored Brands + Sponsored Display: These formats boost visibility and drive brand search volume.
- Amazon DSP: Target lifestyle and in-market audiences using Amazon’s first-party shopper data.
- AMC Audiences: Begin nurturing segments that will be prioritized during Prime Day, like new-to-brand audiences or high-frequency viewers.
The goal is to stand out from the barrage of red deal badges. You want the shopper to already recognize your brand when they land on your offer.
2) Submit and Test Creatives Early
If you're planning to run new video or display creatives during Prime Day, get them live now (minus the official Prime Day references, which can’t be used before the event).
The timeline is clear: Mid-May is the sweet spot. Anything later than early June is risky.
Why this matters:
- Amazon’s moderation process can delay approvals
- Amazon has unique specifications for event-related creative, which must go through additional review.
- Familiarity improves performance: customers who’ve seen an ad before are more likely to click and convert
- You can test placements like Sponsored TV or DSP Online Video (OLV) to assess early engagement
- You can test click-through rates on Sponsored Brands vs. Display
- You can test conversion rates across audience segments
3) Expand Keyword Coverage and Category Reach
Now’s the time to stretch your visibility into mid- and upper-funnel queries:
- Use category-relevant keywords (not just branded terms)
- Identify new search themes and longer-tail queries where your products could win
- Start generating page visits, add-to-carts, and brand impressions—these micro-signals feed Amazon’s algorithm and set you up for a stronger rank and efficiency during the event
4) Audience Building and Campaign Configuration
If you're using AMC or DSP, don’t wait until Prime Day week to define audiences. Do it now:
- Create segments based on:
- Product viewers who didn’t purchase
- Cart abandoners
- Loyal repeat buyers
- High-LTV customers
- Pre-configure bidding strategies (e.g., boost bids for new-to-brand, lower bids for loyalists)
- Begin testing these segments in current campaigns to validate performance
If you wait until July to figure out which audiences to target, you’ve already missed your shot.
During Prime Day: Checks & Tweaks
We want to be so well prepared that there are no surprises during Prime Day. But when the unexpected does happen, be ready to pivot fast.
Here are the live checks and strategic tweaks to deploy across the four-day window.
1) Badging Accuracy: Verify Red Deal Labels Across Ad Types
One of the most common—and most costly—Prime Day issues is badging failures. Without the red deal badge, your product ad might look like any ordinary listing.
What to check:
- Are all promoted ASINs displaying the correct Prime Day badge?
- Are Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Brand Video campaigns showing badges? (These are historically less reliable in terms of badge rendering.)
- Are deals properly registered in the back end, and does Amazon recognize the promotion across placements?
We’ve seen cases where badges don’t render on key ad units, and it kills CTR. Check this first thing, right out of the gate.
2) Align Spending With Peak Selling Times
Shopper behavior during Prime Day is not flat. It spikes in predictable rhythms, with clear peaks and valleys throughout each day.
Your play:
- Reference historical hourly sales data (from past Prime Days or other major events).
- Increase bids and budgets during peak windows (e.g., morning and evening hours).
- Dial back spend during low-conversion periods (midday lulls).
We want to push hard during the peaks and also protect the budget when shoppers are relaxing a bit.
3) Keyword Placement and Ranking: Win the Slots That Matter
Just showing up isn’t enough. You need to win the right placements, especially top-of-search and top carousel positions on category pages.
Monitor:
- Are your highest-value keywords winning top-of-search?
- Are you showing up on page 1, or slipping to less-visible positions?
- Are competitors suddenly outbidding you on your branded terms?
Adjust:
- Use placement reports to evaluate performance.
- Increase bids or budgets on critical terms that are underperforming in visibility.
Winning the right placements during Prime Day is like grabbing the shelf space at eye level in a retail store—it’s everything.
4) Store Page Routing: Check That Campaigns Lead to the Right Destination
This one’s easy to overlook, but a misrouted campaign can mean wasted clicks and lost conversions.
What to validate:
- Sponsored Brand campaigns should lead to the correct Amazon Store page, not a generic landing page.
- Sponsored Display and DSP campaigns should link to the specific product detail page (especially for multi-ASIN ads).
- Any updates made to product URLs or store structure before Prime Day should be QA’d in advance and spot-checked live during the event.
A bad destination link is invisible to the customer, but devastating to performance. We double-check this every Prime Day.
5) Campaign Budgeting: Monitor Spend Pacing in Real Time
One of the highest-risk scenarios is having your best-performing campaigns go dark halfway through the day because they ran out of budget.
Preventative actions:
- Set daily budget alerts or automated top-ups through your ad platform.
- Prioritize funding for your highest-ROAS and highest-intent campaigns.
- Leverage Amazon's automation tools to inject budget based on real-time performance metrics like ROAS, CPC, and CTR.
With four days, automation is crucial. For two days, we can survive with manual checks. Four days? You’ll burn out.
Use Automation as a Strategic Ally (Not Just a Safety Net)
Amazon and third-party platforms now offer more robust automation than ever. Use this to your advantage:
- Auto-pause low-performing campaigns
- Auto-inject budget when campaigns are hitting performance thresholds
- Auto-scale bids during peak hours
The tools are better now—more refined than years past. Smart automation reduces risk and helps manage fatigue across four days.
Post-Event & Lead-Out: Capitalizing on the Demand Surge
Prime Day might feel like the finish line—but for savvy brands, it’s the beginning of the next growth phase.
Your post-event strategy needs to account for two things:
- How shoppers behave immediately after Prime Day
- How to maintain sales momentum and capitalize on the brand lift from the event
Prime Day actually creates two distinct lead-out periods. Each one requires a different approach:
LEAD-OUT PHASE 1: IMMEDIATE COOL-DOWN
(Days 1–4 After Prime Day)
Right after Prime Day ends, shoppers disappear, at least temporarily.
We typically see a significant drop in demand right after the event. It makes sense - after four days of seeing nonstop deals, people pull back.
Strategy for This Phase:
1) Reduce Spending Across the Board
- Don’t go dark, but do cut back on aggressive CPCs and scale down upper-funnel campaigns.
- Maintain “keep-the-lights-on” presence to defend your brand terms and avoid being conquested by competitors.
2) Protect Rank Without Overspending
- Focus on efficient Sponsored Product and Brand campaigns to maintain visibility on high-converting terms.
- Avoid large-scale prospecting during this cool-off period.
LEAD-OUT PHASE 2: DEMAND REBOUND
(Days 5–10 After Prime Day)
After the initial drop-off, traffic and conversions often begin to climb back to pre-event levels, especially for brands that maintained visibility during the cool-down phase.
Strategy for This Phase:
1) Resume Normal Spend Gradually
- As you notice traffic rebounding, begin reintroducing budget into performing campaigns.
- Restart product expansion or category conquesting efforts that may have paused post-event.
2) Focus on Retargeting
- Now is the time to capture all those window shoppers and cart abandoners from Prime Day.
- Recommended segments:
- Visitors who didn’t convert
- Cart abandoners
- Customers who purchased one item in a multi-product catalog
3) Leverage AMC Audiences
- Create post-Prime Day audiences based on event-specific engagement.
- Segment by product viewed, pages visited, or carts abandoned, and retarget with messaging tailored to their interaction.
The Impact of Tariffs and the Ripple Effects for Brands
The 2025 Prime Day landscape also comes with an added layer of complexity: tariffs and supply chain uncertainty.
Brands are facing new questions this year:
- Will increased costs from tariffs impact promotional participation?
- Can we still afford to be aggressive with media investments when margins are thinner?
- How should we balance profitability with competitiveness?
These are not hypothetical issues. They’re active conversations happening across the industry right now.
A VOLATILE ENVIRONMENT WITH REAL BUSINESS IMPACT
Tariffs and global economic shifts are having ripple effects across three key areas:
- Cost of Goods: Higher landed costs mean lower margin on key ASINs.
- Inventory Availability: Ongoing supply chain disruptions make it harder to forecast what products will be available.
- Pricing Competitiveness: As some brands raise prices to preserve margins, others hold steady and compete harder on value.
NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL STRATEGY
Each brand (and even each product line within a brand) must take a tailored approach based on its position, goals, and tolerance for risk.
Here are three broad brand responses we’re seeing in-market:
1. Margin-Protective Brands
These brands are pulling back. They want to protect every margin point.
- Heavily scrutinizing which products go on deal
- Reducing promotional ad spend
- Avoiding low-ROAS experimentation
- Often prioritizing profitability over market share
2. Neutral Brands
Some brands haven’t been impacted yet, or they’re absorbing costs internally.
- Continuing normal operations
- Moderate spending with focus on evergreen strategies
- Preparing contingency plans, but not acting yet
3. Aggressive Brands (Opportunity Seekers)
We’ve seen brands say: While others pull back, we’re going in harder.
- Willing to push more ad dollars into Prime Day
- Seizing market share from cautious competitors
- Using price stability as a competitive advantage
- These brands often have healthy margins or strong DTC offsets
There are category leaders on Amazon who responded to tariff talk by doubling their budget, saying: “When others are fearful, that’s when I go bold. I’m playing the long game.”
STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS: BE DECISIVE, BUT INFORMED
Here’s how to translate this uncertainty into strategic action:
- Prepare, prepare, prepare
- Audit every ASIN’s margin profile—and don’t treat your catalog as a monolith.
- Segment strategies by product: For high-margin items, stay aggressive. For lower-margin SKUs, focus on profitability and ad efficiency.
- Adapt to price positioning: If you’re priced out of the category, media won’t save you. But if you’re competitive, Prime Day is your time to shine.
- Watch inventory closely: Don’t over-invest in SKUs with fragile supply chains.
- Forecast for flexibility: Build media plans that can scale up or pull back depending on how tariffs or shipping costs evolve between now and July.
Final Thoughts
Amazon’s 2025 Prime Day is unlike any other—four days of unprecedented consumer exposure, powered by new ad tech, against a backdrop of economic uncertainty.
Winning requires proactive preparation, flexible budgeting, and precise execution.
If you haven’t started, start now. If you’ve started, refine. The next eight weeks will define your Q3 performance.
Give It a Listen
You can tune in for the full discussion with Damiano Ciarrocchi on the Ecommerce Braintrust hosted by Julie Spear and Jordan Ripley.
This show gives you access to the world's best brains when it comes to building momentum online for established consumer brands. Join in and listen to discussions with expert guests about e-commerce strategies, trends, and innovations.
