Today we are going to be talking about Amazon Strategy. If you are in the consumable category whether it supplements, beauty, health, personal care, mens grooming, or sexual wellness, the winter holiday season may not be your optimal season. The best season for you may be New Years. Hence, New Year, New You!
We are talking about New Year’s primarily from January 1st-22nd. In the supplement category, we tend to see our brands make the majority of their sales in the first month of the year; and that can potentially trickle down to March. But the majority of your customers, especially new to brand customers, are going to come through in the first 60 days of the year.
So what does that mean in terms of strategy?
Hold back investments from the holidays Black Friday and Cyber Monday and instead invest in the New Year. People are generally going to be shopping for electronics, innovative items, etc on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So the idea is to hold back some of that investment. It may be too late for you this year if you’ve already invested in Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but it’s ok because you still have the opportunity to invest in January.
Here are some of the life cycles we see on Amazon:
First, if you have some new to brand acquisitions at the beginning of the year, they usually come because family members or friends give gift cards or cash for the holidays. And the customer will use them to purchase products whether that’s brick and mortar or online. Primarily on Amazon, we see a ton of Amazon acquisitions in the first two months of the year.
We also see time and time again that customers tend to be looking for consumable products at the beginning of the year, not the end. For the whole new year, new me transformation. Because of this, we recommend investing more at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year because it is the best strategy for most of the consumable category. Food for thought.
We also recommend doing your heavy investments in terms of new customer acquisitions from a discount perspective, in the first two months of the year, especially if you’re in the supplement category. Make sure to understand what category your products fall under. Supplements as a category is pretty large, and there are some that will leak into the consumable/beauty products for example collagen, or immunity probiotics and prebiotics.
Second, double down on your DSP investment. DSP stands for demand-side-platform. We will further break this down in other articles and videos but for those of you that have a general understanding of DSPs, they are new customer acquisitions through promotions, discounts, deals, deal of the day, lightning deals, etc. DSP is primarily for retargeting purposes. The idea is to make sure the customer sees your lifecycle and your product over and over again before they convert.
DSP allows you to programmatically buy ads to reach new and existing audiences on and off Amazon.
Third, constantly advertise. If you double down on spread brands and videos, you will see a ton of new-to-brand people. Sponsored products can be a gamble because the majority of your conversion will come through sponsored products but also the majority of your spend. But a lot of brands tend to invest in spored products and don’t overly invest in sponsored brands and videos due to the cost. Because brands tend to invest heavily in sponsored products, the other two are often neglected (sponsored products and videos) so if you invest in them, you can capitalize a lot of the market share and new customer acquisition.
From a strategic perspective, I would recommend investing in sponsored brands and videos towards the beginning of the year. New Year, New You!
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