Christmas in July isn’t a new concept.
But Amazon reinvented it in 2015 when they celebrated the company’s 20th birthday by launching Amazon Prime Day: the limited-time shopping holiday that offers deep discounts and deals to Prime members.
In 2025, Amazon Prime Day saw its most successful year yet, generating nearly $24 billion in US sales over an expanded 4-day event. That’s a 69% increase from 2024, which is notable given that inflation slowed to an average of 2.7% in 2025.
And this year, the sales start even earlier: Amazon recently announced that Prime Day 2026 will take place in June.
With over 240 million Prime members and an even larger non-member audience, Amazon can help brands increase discoverability of their products through its marketplace, and benefit from two-day shipping through Fulfillment by Amazon.
But this access comes at a hefty price in the form of monthly subscription, referral, closing, and order fulfillment fees. And the biggest price brands pay to sell on Amazon is the lack of data and missed opportunities to create long-lasting connections with customers.
Instead, brands are finding ways to rely less on third-party data, generate more zero- and first-party data, and create tailored offers that reflect the real-life behavioral and preferential data their customers generate through direct brand interactions.
Marketers who do sell on Amazon must go into it with a channel-specific CRM strategy, while also maintaining a strong DTC presence.
Keep reading to learn about 5 creative Prime Day marketing strategies that have worked for real brands.
Align your marketing campaigns with relevant holidays and year-round celebrations.
Get your marketing campaign calendar1. Offer a comparable or better Prime Day deal through your own website
According to Klaviyo’s future of consumer marketing report, the biggest frustration consumers have when shopping the same brand in different places is inconsistent pricing and promotions.
If you’re selling products on Amazon, consider attracting customers to buy directly through your ecommerce website by:
- Matching Prime Day pricing on your own website
- Offering an even better discount in exchange for an email address or phone number
- Highlighting subscription or bundling options that empower your customers to save money without discounts
You may find that, eventually, you can wean your brand off Amazon completely. But we realize this might seem like a leap, and you’ll need evidence to back up the move.
If you need some convincing, monitor your onsite performance metrics during and just after the holiday, and compare your third-party revenue to your onsite revenue to make a determination.
1. Offer a comparable or better Prime Day deal through your own website
According to Klaviyo’s 2026 future of consumer marketing research, inconsistent pricing and promotions are consumers’ main frustration when shopping across channels.
If you’re selling products on Amazon, consider attracting customers to buy directly through your ecommerce website by:
- Matching Prime Day pricing on your own website
- Offering an even better discount in exchange for an email address or phone number
- Highlighting subscription or bundling options that empower your customers to save money without discounts
You may find that, eventually, you can wean your brand off Amazon completely. But this might seem like a leap, and you’ll need evidence to back up the move.
If you need some convincing, monitor your on-site performance metrics during and just after the holiday, and compare your third-party revenue to your onsite revenue to make a determination.
Prime Day marketing example: Seventh Sense builds brand loyalty off Amazon
Seventh Sense, a plant-based wellness brand, sells a range of lotions, pet products, and gummies. Because their products are manufactured with CBD, the company cannot have a presence on Amazon.
In this Prime Day marketing example, Seventh Sense runs their own “Insider Prime Days” activation during the Amazon Prime Day window. The email preheader entices recipients to “Skip Amazon’s chaos,” and the brand sweetens the deal with 25% off and free shipping for loyalty program members.
This kind of approach is a win-win: customers save money, and Seventh Sense grows their Wellness Rewards loyalty program, creating more opportunities to incentivize reviews, encourage referrals, and capture zero-party data like product preferences. This information gives the brand more flexibility to personalize outreach in the future.
Source: Milled
2. Generate buzz (and business) with dedicated Prime Day social activations
With millions of products on sale during Prime Day, brands have to cut through a lot of noise to earn a spot on customers’ shopping lists. An integrated social media strategy can set your business apart from brands relying on email promotions alone.
61% of consumers have discovered a new brand or product on social in the last 12 months, according to Deloitte research. Once audiences find or follow you, convert social media engagement into revenue on Prime Day and beyond by:
- Pushing consumers to your link in bio, then routing them to a sign-up form on your website so you can message them about sales and deals
- Converting social interactions like Instagram DMs, comments, and tags directly into email, text message, and WhatsApp subscribers
- Capturing tags and @mentions across Stories, Posts, and Reels to enrich customer profiles and drive deeper personalization
Prime Day marketing example: Poppi pours their bubbly style across social to generate Prime excitement
Amazon is prime real estate for prebiotic soda brand Poppi, one of the marketplace’s top-selling soft drinks. The brand relies heavily on social to promote their Prime Day sales.
In this Prime Day marketing example, Poppi teases exclusive Prime Day discounts as part of their Poppi hotline call-in series, a highly anticipated moment for their fans. Embedding a gamified Prime Day element stokes audience engagement, giving hotline callers more reasons to shop the limited-time sale.
In exchange, the brand can collect data from the hotline calls (like which flavor aligns with the caller’s description) to fuel owned marketing efforts going forward. Or, instead of saying “call us,” they could ask their audience to comment with a keyword, then share an automated DM with a link to a quiz where they could collect the same info.
Source: Poppi Instagram
3. Extend Prime Day for VIP audiences
Amazon Prime Days are one of the top 5 holidays consumers buy gifts for due to the availability of deals or discounts, according to Klaviyo’s 2025 BFCM Forecast.
Similarly, a Klaviyo analysis of 10,000 US ecommerce brands found that 3 of the top 5 ecommerce revenue days during summer 2025 were June 30, July 1, and July 7, which were all in the pre-Prime window.
Some consumers plan for Prime Day-adjacent sales weeks in advance. That creates a major opportunity to use AI-powered predictive analytics to connect with high-value customers in your database, like VIPs based on predicted lifetime value, or those who are expected to make an order soon.
Prime Day marketing example: SlumberPod offers early VIP access to Prime Day sales
In this Prime Day marketing example, baby travel product brand SlumberPod encourages shoppers to get ahead of the rush, launching a 20% off sale on their website a full week before Amazon Prime Day. It’s a smart move: SlumberPod’s most engaged shoppers get early access to deals, and the brand pushes consumers to buy directly from their website, where they can keep more of the profit from the sale.
Source: Milled
4. Lean on text message marketing to entice new and returning customers
As customer acquisition costs rise across channels and social algorithms become more volatile, one of the smartest things you can do is prioritize your owned data and marketing channels.
Klaviyo’s 2025 analysis found that text message marketing gives brands a powerful edge in the lead-up to Prime Day. When eager shoppers are on the lookout for early promotions, this channel lets you quickly capture demand and sales.
In 2025, Klaviyo customers saw text message revenue spike 21% during July 4th week and another 15% during Prime Day. 1 in 3 text message orders came from new customers, showing that early outreach fuels both repeat purchases and new customer acquisition.
Timely, relevant marketing is influential during a massive, saturated sale like Prime Day. Text message marketing blends the personal touch of an in-person experience with the speed of ecommerce, helping you show up first and stand out.
Prime Day marketing example: Super Coffee brews Prime perks for SMS subscribers
Super Coffee is known for their sugar-free, protein-packed line of bottled coffee drinks and powders. In this Instagram post, they encourage consumers to subscribe to text message updates to get early access to Prime Day savings. Using Prime Day as a hook for text message opt-ins gives Super Coffee a short-term sales lift and a larger audience to nurture long-term.
Source: Super Coffee Instagram
5. Exceed shoppers’ expectations with AI-powered customer service
AI plays a growing role in the entire customer journey. 41% of consumers have purchased an AI-recommended product within the past 6 months, according to Klaviyo’s 2026 AI Consumer Trends Report, and 27% have learned about a new product from AI and then gone on to research it further.
Amazon incorporated AI throughout the 2025 Prime Day experience, through resources including AI shopping guides and their AI shopping assistant, Rufus. The more consumers are exposed to this level of AI-powered personalized service on third-party marketplaces, the higher their expectations will be when interacting directly with your brand.
Especially during a high-volume event like Prime Day, you may see an uptick in visitors coming to your website to learn about product details like ingredients and sizing before making their final purchase.
A branded AI customer agent trained on your storefront and customer data provides instant, 24/7/365 support for product FAQs, and can even make personalized product recommendations based on a shopper’s past browsing behavior.
Prime Day marketing example: NANUK’s AI customer agent provides instant resolution to shopper questions
NANUK’s durable, waterproof hard cases are trusted by photographers, military operators, and first responders around the world. Their reputation for quality and reliability applies to their customer service operations as much as it does to their products, which they sell through their ecommerce website and on Amazon.
When NANUK’s human experts kept getting bogged down responding to simple product FAQs coming in via email, phone, and social, they launched Nuk, an AI customer service agent that resolved 100% of product recommendation queries in a 90-day period.
Here, Nuk helps a consumer identify the best case for urban photography, embedding a product page link and a button to add it straight to their cart. Whether new customers are making their first NANUK purchase directly or through Amazon, Nuk serves as a valuable resource for learning more about the brand and product portfolio.
Source: NANUK
Make the most of Prime Day with Klaviyo
Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping events of the year. The right platform can help you turn consumers’ deal-hunting drive into revenue and long-term loyalty.
Klaviyo B2C CRM, which combines your customer data, marketing automation, customer service, agentic AI, and reporting and analytics all in one platform, helps brands maximize results before, during, and after Prime Day, with:
- K:AI Customer Agent: Autonomously resolve customer questions, recommend products, and escalate complex issues across email, text messaging, chat, and more.
- Marketing automation: Automate timely, personalized messaging across email, text messaging, WhatsApp, and mobile push, all from one platform.
- Klaviyo Social: Convert organic social engagement into subscriber list growth, enrich customer profiles with social data, and trigger automated flows based on social interactions.
Boost sales and engagement all year long with Klaviyo
Sign up
Related content
