5 Best Amazon Q4 Marketing Strategies

July 21st, 2021

Amazon Q4 Marketing Tactics

It’s important to constantly learn and grow. We can take what we learned from selling before COVID, during, and also from the most recent Prime Day to explore the best options moving forward into Q4.

Your Amazon Q4 marketing plan needs to be strategic and strong. There is a vast amount of competition and Q4 is the last push for the year, topped with an aggressive holiday shopping season. It’s best to plan ahead and use the increase of shoppers to your advantage.


What We Learned from Prime Day 2021

Early promoters get more exposure.

The two weeks leading up to Prime Day are just as important as the event itself. Those brands who invest in advertising before Prime Day tend to see bigger sales numbers.

Leading up to Prime Day, consumers are researching and saving items to their list or cart. If your product grabbed their attention and they added it to the list or cart, you are now on the forefront of their mind. When they go back to check out they will see your product again. Repeated exposure helps to seal the deal.

Discounts are always attractive.

In a very popular and crowded eCommerce marketplace, how can you stand out? Utilize Amazon’s different discount options: Lightning Deals, Prime Day Deals, and coupons all help to attract more eyes to your listing.

Listing flair stands out.

Badges get attention. Not only do they set you apart from the thousands of other listings similar to yours, but they also help build trust. The badges given by Amazon are not given to just anyone. You have to work hard to earn them.

Amazon stated that Prime Day 2021 was the biggest two-day period ever for Amazon’s third-party sellers, “growing even more than Amazon’s retail business.” It is estimated by Morgan Stanleys analyst team that Prime Day 2021 generated $6.8 billion of gross merchandise sales. That was up 9% year over year. 


How to Use Prime Day Data for Amazon Q4 Marketing

Amazon does a pretty decent job at providing you with stats on how your overall performance is doing on their platform. Dissect this information and use it to your benefit.

Monitor your customer feedback and returns.

If you are seeing repeated negative feedback about the same issues, learn from it. Take a closer look at your product and listings and see what needs to be improved.

Is your copy and are your images doing an adequate job explaining the important details about your product? If it’s a product quality issue, what can you learn from that? Is your manufacturer meeting your expectations, or do you need to re-evaluate? Sometimes a small tweak is all it takes to set your listing up for success while setting customer expectations.

Prepare your inventory today.

You don’t want to miss out on Amazon Q4 (or any eCommerce platform during Q4). If COVID has taught us anything, it’s that we need to reset our expectations. Inventory does not always ship fast and planning ahead is the only way to ensure that you will have inventory ready to go and sell in time for the holiday rush.

Review what worked or didn’t work for Prime Day in terms of your inventory. Did you run out of inventory? Did it take longer to get in your hands than you expected? Use this information to better plan for the remainder of the year.


5 Best Amazon Q4 Marketing Strategies to Aim Your Focus

Establish an Amazon Q4 Marketing Plan Early

Marketing doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to set up your advertising, take or create new images, write new copy, research keywords and more.

Create an Inventory Management Strategy

Expect that there will be longer lead times to acquire merchandise. Being organized and keeping track of your inventory is a huge part of your business, especially when dealing with delayed shipping times. You have to be strategic to make sure you have the inventory you need ready to go.

Knowing how much inventory you should have comes with careful planning. Look at your sales data to determine which products have done well during Q4 in the past. This should give you a starting point to be able to estimate how much you need to have stocked. Any lag in inventory, or out of stock issues, gives your competition a leg up.

Start PPC Advertising Early

The goal of any advertising campaign is to increase awareness. Traditionally, without advertising, it could take weeks, months or even years to get your product on page one of Amazon search results. When you are running a business, you don’t have that time to waste.

Start your campaigns early. This will be helpful for you to notice trends, track new keywords or unused keywords, and to adjust your advertising to better target your ideal audience.

Amazon PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising allows you to only pay for the clicks you receive on your ads. There are four fundamental ad types that are available through Amazon PPC:

  • Sponsored Ads
  • Sponsored Brand Ads
  • Sponsored Brand Videos
  • Sponsored Display Ads

Prepare for Promotions

Coupons, discounts, and other promotions are a great way to garner new interest in your products and also give an incentive for the customer to make the purchase. There are three popular options to consider for Amazon promotions while you are preparing for Q4. 

  • Lightning Deals: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are known for Lightning Deals. Sellers have to submit their deal by a predetermined deadline set by Amazon. This is not a guaranteed promo opportunity though. Even if you submit a deal, it does not mean your deal will be displayed. Deals with the best price, quantity, and inventory are awarded the best time and position on the Amazon Deals page. 
  • Promotions: If you are looking to move more products, a promotion is an excellent option. They are typically used to offer a multi-unit or tiered discount on your products. This option is also great to use in conjunction with external marketing and advertising campaigns.
  • Coupons: Coupons are seen from the search results and are great for driving consumers to your page. There is a fee associated per coupon clipped and used.

Stay Focused on Customer Service and Reviews

Q4 is traditionally a busy time of year and provides a good amount of sales for most Amazon sellers. With that in mind, don’t forget that customer service and quality reviews are important for continued success on Amazon and to improve your ranking.

Amazon respects and gives advantages to sellers who take their customer service experience seriously. Don’t forget to allocate time to answer buyer questions and respond to customer service queries. And don’t forget to spend some time focusing on ways to get more reviews.


Take Your Marketing a Step Further

In addition to the key Amazon Q4 marketing strategies listed above, don’t forget what you learned from Prime Day. Discounts, badges, and advertising early are effective to help you stand out, sell more, and improve your ranking.

Answer these questions for your business goals. The answers should lead you to a clearer understanding of what you need to do to prepare for Q4.

  1. What are your growth goals? Make sure you set measurable goals or SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound). This will help to more accurately measure your success when Q4 is over and give you valuable data to learn from.
  2. How can they be achieved? Advertising, offering a coupon, promoting your products through social media? Finding the right marketing tools and using them to your advantage is essential to help you reach your goals.

Have you done everything you can to ensure that your listings are top-notch? We're talking about quality and informative copy, engaging images and graphics, and powerful, relevant keywords. These components all work together to make your listing stronger and to help customers (and Amazon) match your product to their search query.


If you are still left unsure, don’t worry. That’s why we’re here to help. We have experience with managing over 250 Amazon accounts worldwide. And we can create a customized plan that fits your target audience, budget and needs.

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