Holiday Amazon Do's and Don'ts

The holiday season is a critical time for brands on Amazon, with shoppers actively seeking deals and seasonal inspiration. Updating your advertising strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a necessity.

Mobile devices drove 51.1% of online holiday spending in 2023, amounting to a record-breaking $113.5 billion, and consumers are increasingly drawn to personalized, festive promotions {Adobe Digital Index (2023)}. In fact, 61% of holiday shoppers were more likely to purchase from brands that incorporated holiday-themed imagery and deals into their ads {Google’s Insights on Holiday Marketing (2020)}.

As competition heats up, aligning your Amazon advertising with the season’s spirit is the key to standing out and maximizing sales. Here's our simple guide to updating your Amazon listings for the holiday season!

Your Amazon Holiday Content Guide 

• DO Plan and Schedule Early: Start planning holiday campaigns ahead of time. According to the National Retail Federation, a large portion of consumers start holiday shopping as early as October.

​​​​Planning allows time for strategic design, A/B testing, adjustment, and efficient execution.

• DO Leverage Emotional Connections: Holidays are an ideal time to tap into emotions. According to HubSpot, 71% of consumers want brands to connect through emotion.

Highlight elements of your product(s) that make them giftable to your target demographic. Think, “Give the Gift of Pain Relief,” or “New Year, New You”.

• DO Connect Through Visuals: Double down on your emotional connections by refreshing your Amazon visuals with holiday-themed content. In recent holiday seasons, Shopify saw a 23% boost in conversions for businesses that featured holiday elements like festive imagery, countdown timers, and holiday-specific discounts.

Update your Image Stack, Brand Story, A+ Content, and Storefront to include these types of elements.

• DO Run Holiday Campaigns: Leverage Custom DSP, Sponsored Brands, and Store Spotlight campaigns to drive traffic to promoted products.

*For the ultimate campaign, create a Store Page strictly as a holiday shopping/deals landing page. Design a custom page with holiday themes and curated products to drive conversion and boost average order value.

If invited, be sure to take advantage of any Amazon Deals as well.

• DO Optimize for Mobile: In 2023 Adobe found mobile devices overtook desktops during the holiday season, accounting for 51.1% of online spend. We also know that Amazon claims 65% of product searches happen on their site with 80% of these on mobile. Make sure your content is designed for mobile users first and desktop users second.

• DO Add Holiday Keywords in SEO: Using holiday-specific keywords (e.g., “holiday gifts,” “Christmas deals”) can dramatically increase the Generated Search Volume of your product detail pages.

Make sure you add these keywords to your GENERIC KEYWORDS or SEARCH TERMS fields in the backend of your PDPs. If applicable, feel free to add these keywords to your TITLE, BULLETS, or DESCRIPTIONS as well.

Some Mistakes to Skip

• Avoid Bland/Generic Messaging: Generic “Happy Holidays” messages don’t stand out. Instead, curate your messaging to case-use and lifestyle situations for your target audience.

Help the customer visualize giving your product as the perfect gift!

• DON'T Ignore User Generated Content: Now more than ever shoppers will be discovering new products and relying on reviews or testimonials.

Be sure to leverage UGC and reviews to develop brand trust with new-to-brand customers.

• DON'T Overdo Sales Emails: It’s too easy to fall into the trap of sending too many holiday emails. This can lead to deal fatigue and cause you to lose subscribers.

Make sure each email has a clear purpose and is curated for your target audience.

• Avoid Sales Type Language: Amazon hates the use of promotional language on custom creatives. Avoid “Don’t Wait” or “Hurry Up” language and don’t put prices/percentages on visuals.

Instead, focus on emotional connections with your shoppers and help them envision your products solving problems in their lives.

• DON'T Holiday Just to Holiday: If your products aren’t truly giftable items, don’t just throw a bow on an image and call it a day. All of Amazon indeed gets a lift in traffic during this time, but that’s no reason to put bows and ornaments all over your page.

However, it’s important to run promotions during this time to capture some of that traffic. Be sure to run coupons, prime exclusive deals, and other promotions to increase your holiday market share, regardless if your products are giftable or not.

• DON'T Forget the New Year: Are you a supplement or food brand? The fun really starts for you in January!

 The Holiday Season doesn’t end at Christmas, so be sure to incorporate “New Year, New You” type messaging to target your demographic with case-use scenarios.