How to Prepare for Amazon Prime Day and Deal Events

Amazon’s deal events - Prime Day in July and Prime Big Deal Days in October - are two of the biggest revenue opportunities in the Amazon calendar. Sellers who prepare properly can see dramatic sales increases during these windows, while those who don’t risk watching competitors take their traffic. This guide covers the step-by-step preparation process we use at Kangaroo UK to get our clients event-ready, typically starting 4-6 weeks before the event.

When Are Amazon’s Major Deal Events?

Amazon runs two major annual deal events exclusively for Prime members. Prime Day takes place in July and is the larger of the two in 2025. Amazon extended it to four days (July 8–11) for the first time. Prime Big Deal Days runs in October and is typically a shorter, sharper two-day event designed to kick off the Q4 holiday shopping season ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Both events follow the same principle: concentrated traffic, heightened buyer intent, and heavy competition for visibility. The sellers who win are the ones who treat the preparation as the main event, not the two or four days themselves.

How Far in Advance Should I Start Preparing?

We start preparing our managed accounts 4–6 weeks before each event. That gives us enough time to optimise listings, adjust PPC campaigns, confirm stock levels, and set up deal submissions without rushing. Trying to prepare in the final week is too late for most meaningful changes, particularly deal submissions, which Amazon requires well in advance.

Here’s the timeline we follow for our Amazon Account Management clients:

6 weeks before: Review catalogue performance, identify which products to promote, and check stock levels. Submit Lightning Deal applications if applicable — Amazon’s deadlines for these are typically 4–6 weeks before the event.

4 weeks before: Optimise listings. Every product you plan to promote needs to be fully retail-ready before you increase ad spend. There’s no point driving traffic to a listing that doesn’t convert.

2 weeks before: Restructure PPC campaigns, increase daily budgets, and set up new keyword targets based on event-specific search terms. Test ad copy and confirm deal pricing.

1 week before: Final stock check, confirm FBA shipments have arrived, activate coupons, and do a last review of all listings.

During the event: Monitor budgets hourly, adjust bids in real-time, and stagger promotions to maintain visibility across both days.

What Does “Retail-Ready” Actually Mean?

A retail-ready listing is one that has everything it needs to convert a click into a sale. Before we increase ad spend for any event, every listing in our clients’ promoted range needs to meet these criteria:

• Optimised title - keyword-rich, clear, and within Amazon’s character limits
• High-quality images - minimum 6 images including lifestyle shots, infographics, and size/scale reference
• Keyword-rich bullet points - covering features, benefits, and common search terms
• A+ Content or Brand Story - enhanced content that increases time on page and conversion rate
• Sufficient reviews - ideally 15+ reviews with a rating above 3.5 stars before running heavy ad spend
• Competitive pricing - checked against the top 5 competitors in your category
• Stock availability - enough FBA inventory to last through the event plus a buffer for the post-event sales tail

If a listing doesn’t meet these criteria, we either fix it before the event or exclude it from the promoted range. Driving paid traffic to a weak listing wastes budget and can actually hurt your organic ranking if the conversion rate drops.

How Should I Set My PPC Budget for a Deal Event?

This is where many sellers get it wrong. During deal events, CPCs (cost-per-click) rise significantly as more sellers compete for the same ad placements. In Prime Big Deal Days 2025, industry data showed CPCs rose by 43% year-on-year. If you don’t increase your budgets, your campaigns will run out of budget before the day is over and you’ll miss peak traffic hours.

Our general rule of thumb is to increase daily budgets by 2–3x your normal spend for the duration of the event. For top-performing campaigns on your most profitable products, we sometimes go higher. The key is monitoring throughout the day and reallocating budget from underperforming campaigns to those delivering strong returns.

We cover our full approach to Amazon PPC strategy in a separate guide, but the event-specific priorities are: higher budgets, tighter keyword targeting, aggressive bid adjustments during peak hours, and a clear plan for which products get the most spend.

What Deal Types Should I Use?

Amazon offers several deal mechanisms for events. The right choice depends on your product, your margin, and how much visibility you need:

Lightning Deals - time-limited, high-visibility deals that appear on Amazon’s dedicated deals page. These require advance submission and Amazon approval. They drive significant traffic but come with a fee and require a meaningful discount.

Prime Exclusive Discounts - price reductions visible only to Prime members. These show a strikethrough price on your listing, which increases click-through and conversion rates. Lower barrier to entry than Lightning Deals.

Coupons - the easiest to set up and the most flexible. Coupons can be activated quickly (even during the event), they’re visible on search results, and they attract price-sensitive shoppers. Good for products where you want incremental visibility without committing to a deep discount.

We typically recommend a mix: Lightning Deals on your hero products for maximum visibility, Prime Exclusive Discounts on your mid-range catalogue, and coupons as a catch-all for everything else.

What Results Can Sellers Expect?

The results vary by category, product, and how well you’ve prepared. But to give you a benchmark: during Prime Big Deal Days 2025, our managed clients at Kangaroo UK saw up to 533% sales growth compared to their baseline performance. Industry-wide, conversion rates were up 7% year-on-year and ad-attributed revenue increased by 23% for brands with optimised strategies.

The post-event period is just as important. The sales velocity you build during a deal event can boost your organic ranking for weeks afterwards, meaning the benefits extend well beyond the two-day window. We always plan for this tail effect by maintaining slightly elevated ad spend for 7-10 days after the event ends.

Want your Amazon account event-ready?

Our Amazon specialists prepare clients for every major deal event year-round. Book a free Amazon account review or call us on 01530 560177.

Author

Abhilav Vishwakarma, Amazon Marketplace Leader - Abhilav leads the Amazon team at Kangaroo UK, managing Seller and Vendor Central accounts for brands across the UK. He specialises in Amazon PPC, listing optimisation, deal strategy, and account growth. Abhilav and the team work on client accounts daily, preparing brands for Amazon’s major events and driving year-round performance.