Lightning Deal Blanket Strategy

There’s a strong chance you’re underutilizing the power of Lightning Deals.

One of the best strategies focused on visibility and sales velocity (via promotions) all made possible by Amazon itself.

Not a bad deal (pardon the pun) especially for the savvy seller.

So let’s think of ways to make the most of Lightning Deals.

This strategy in particular I like to call the Lightning Deal Blanket or ‘LD Blanket’ for short. Essentially we are promoting and pushing alongside Amazon to create elevated product visibility for the duration of the Lightning Deal – and beyond of course.

Worried about your Deal eligibility? Read more here.

Before folding in PPC or even scheduling our Lightning Deal(s) it’s important we first know our numbers.

This includes (but is not limited to):

1. Lightning Deal fees (learn more here)
2. Product Costs (landed costs)
3. Amazon Fees (at your retail price)
4. PPC Target ACoS (break even numbers in mind)

These are important numbers you’ll want to have in mind when it comes to scheduling and strategizing your Lightning Deal.

Now if your goal is exposure and a degree of profitability you may want your Lightning Deal to simply be well timed or utilized alongside another promotional activity (ex: off-Amazon sale/discount). Always an option if you’re eligible but isn’t exactly what we are looking for when it comes to the Lightning Deal Blanket strategy.

However, really ramping up your on-channel (Amazon) exposure via PPC is an exceptional way to go.

Doing this intentionally through exact match campaigns and through product targeting are 2 easy ways to really blow up the visibility of ASIN that’s part of the Lightning Deal.

PRO TIP:

You ALWAYS want to have an Auto campaign running for each one of your active ASINs. There is a clear and distinct rank benefit which is intuitive (from an Amazon perspective).

Ramping up exact match campaigns is as simple as identifying your highest value keywords (think top 10) and configuring your campaigns. If these keywords are already isolated in unique campaigns (exact match emphasis) than you can consider ramping up spend during the duration of your Lightning Deal.

Exact match is intuitive here as we want to drive optimal performance while pushing the most product (and brand) visibility during our Lightning Deal.

This is also when knowing your landed costs and Amazon fees come into play. This will inform what your break-even spend can/will be as using this strategy effectively requires aggressive spend. Running break-even for the duration of the deal is optimal and with your budget and goals in mind you want to consider overspending just to be that much more aggressive.

On the product targeting side it’s a great opportunity to create and/or ramp up ads pulling valuable real estate from competitors.

What are some solid competitors to go after?

Those same Auto campaigns we are making sure we run give us some solid ASINs to review against performance metrics like ACoS. These can be considered ‘high converting’ ASINs you can prioritize. This is effectively your low hanging fruit – set up your product targeting campaign with these ASINs.

Another tip – negative match ‘low converting’ ASINs (high ACoS). This type of Negative Targeting ensures you’re not showing up for ASINs you haven’t performed as well for.

This Lighting Deal Blanket strategy is starting to really come together.

Want to take it a step further?

Start with your same 10 exact match keywords. Run a search using these keywords. Review top competitors (page 1) and identify those that have:

– Lower star rating (ex: 1 star less than you)

– Poor Images & Title (low quality and/or under-optimized)

Let’s keep it as simple as that for now.

Remember a majority (not all) of your product targeting ads will be displayed on the product detail pages of the ASINs you choose. The intuitive strategy here is putting your ad (and product) in that valuable real estate where you can be viewed as more obviously superior.

And this really rounds out our Lightning Deal Blanket strategy. We are pushing alongside our lightning deal keyword and product relevant adds to capture visibility and blanket relevant search results.

Pretty great, right?

So give this strategy a try the next time you use a Lightning Deal. And share your results with us in FBA Kings.

I’m looking forward to what it can do for your product visibility and ranking!