Before we dive into how our brands sparkled during Prime Day, let’s look at the overall results reported by Amazon US:

• The best-selling categories were home, fashion, toys, beauty and Amazon devices.
• Customers supported small businesses in the US, generating $1b in sales.
• The best-selling items were Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick and Apple Airpods.

So, what did we notice here at This Is Unicorn?

Our main takeaways
While there are always expectations and discussions in the industry on how Black Friday and Cyber Monday will perform, it’s always great to see the success of businesses. But what we definitely geek out on here at This Is Unicorn is when new trends emerge.

One such trend that has been emerging over a few years is that more brands are starting to offer Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals earlier in the month. This is in response to consumers starting their holiday shopping earlier. By offering deals ahead of Black Friday, brands can capture the attention of consumers who are already in the mood to shop, which helps drive sales.

Here’s what we captured with our brands. We expect stellar results, and this year was no different:

• Promotions Work: as expected, there was a significant boost in sales for ASINs that had promotions during Black Friday & Cyber Monday.
• Promotion Type has an impact: there was a higher impact on those accounts that had deals compared to price discounts or voucher promotions. Deals have more visibility as the ASINs display a “Deal” badge and are added to the Amazon Deals sections on the initial Amazon page.
• Black Friday soared: Ad revenue and overall revenue were higher on Black Friday compared to Cyber Monday due to higher demand. The halo effect continued too though: there were significantly higher ad and overall revenue volumes over the weekend compared pre-Cyber weekend days.
• It’s holiday season after all: Gift-related products have shown more growth during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, especially in the alcohol category.

Key highlights from our top-performing brands

Well, what a Black Friday & Cyber Monday event! 2022 certainly delivered great results for our brands with some particular categories worth specific mention. Take a look:

• In the spirits category, some brands saw overall revenues increase by between 2.5-6X.
• In the food category, we saw overall revenue increases of up to 3X compared to last year
• Across other categories, we typically achieved a 2X increase in overall revenue.

Holiday Season Isn’t Over Yet

It’s worth mentioning some key trends that we typically see across the holiday season but are always important to keep in mind when planning your strategies for future events.

ROAS Decreases but then Improves

ROAS often decreases in the days before the Cyber weekend as customers are shopping around first, before purchasing at a later date. We saw the same this year – ROAS & TACOS increased on average across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We expect this trend to continue over the holiday period, as customers start to convert with increased urgency.

Keep Promotions Going

After achieving great results from accounts with promotions during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we recommend setting up promotions (especially lightning deals) for the next seasonal events!

Use all Campaign Types in your Strategy

As you’d expect, Sponsored Product campaigns have been the best-selling campaign type during the Cyber weekend due to the higher conversion rate they perform against other campaign types like Sponsored Brand or Sponsored Display. But we’ve also seen stand-out results from these campaign types, so don’t forget to ensure you’re including these in your strategy too:

Sponsored display campaigns optimised for Awareness (Reach or CPM)
Use this campaign type to advertise ASINs with promotions – our objective is to increase awareness of discounts running for these ASINs. Note that:

• Instead of the usual cost per click (CPC), it pays for the number of impressions (CPM)
• It is fundamental to add a logo, headline and a captivating image to drive engagement – it’s proven that adding all the elements can increase your conversion rate

Sponsored display campaigns – remarketing to view and purchase users
Use this campaign to target users that viewed or purchased our product in the past. This is ideal for products with recurrence, which is great as you move from the holiday season into next year.

Final thoughts

Definitely record-breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday results! This reaffirms Amazon’s dominance within eCommerce, and the importance of having a presence on the platform.

Discounts are a key driver in boosting sales. So, this remains an important strategy for all brands to stay high on search ranks and have a halo effect as we move deeper into the seasonal calendar.

Do you want to implement some of the key insights mentioned in this article into your strategy for the festive season? Feel free to send us a message and we’ll be happy to help!