New Year, New You on Amazon – Get the Most Out of this Beginning-of-Year Tentpole Event
Fall is here and has quickly enveloped us in the warm embrace of the cozy season. It’s a time for snuggling next to the fire, enjoying holiday treats, and cherishing time with loved ones. While we are currently swept up in our affection for fall, the New Year is just around the corner and will be here before we know it. This means we will soon shift our priorities toward establishing new goals, resolutions, and ambitions. For brands, this signals an urgency to develop optimized strategies that ensure they show up in an impactful way for the yearly phenomenon that is New Year, New You (NYNY).
What is NYNY?
NYNY takes place at the beginning of every year when consumers are highly dedicated to their self-improvement efforts. It is a tentpole event that causes an influx of consumer demand, especially for health and wellness, beauty, and even pet products, driving a dramatic surplus of traffic and creating a significant sales opportunity for brands.
Amazon is a primary destination for consumers seeking their NYNY essentials. It is critical for brands on Amazon to begin planning for this tentpole now to get ahead of these 3 strategic phases:
Building relationships with new consumers BEFORE
Converting active shoppers DURING
Retargeting for growth and loyalty AFTER
Before we dive into some of our NYNY tips, it may be essential for certain brands to review concrete data that underscores the significance of this tentpole. Here's some compelling evidence...
Why Participate in NYNY?
Category Growth
According to Adweek, demand within the health and wellness category continues to increase over time. When comparing 2021 to 2024, they anticipate global spend on health and wellness products and services to increase by +19%.
Amazon is also seeing tremendous growth in the beauty category in comparison to other beauty retailers. When looking at the 12-month period ending in June 2023 vs. the prior year, Amazon saw greater growth in beauty subcategories than Sephora and Ulta:
(Source: Circana, Checkout, 12ME June 2023 vs. YA)
The massive increase in demand for health and wellness and beauty products leads us to anticipate that NYNY traffic on Amazon will be at its highest levels ever in 2024. This makes it difficult to overlook the opportunity to connect with the surplus of consumers that this tentpole generates.
2. Reach More New-to-Brand (NTB) Shoppers
In 2022, more NTB customers joined the health and wellness category in January than any other month and in Q1 than any other quarter. According to Amazon’s internal data, when looking at Q1 2023 versus all other quarters (Q3 2022, Q4 2022, and Q2 2023), the number of new-to-category health and wellness customers was up +22%.
Amazon’s internal data also shows us that new customers reached during NYNY spent far more than other shoppers from January ’23 – August ‘23.
This shows that NYNY is the perfect chance to reach more new customers who are likelier to basket build and purchase more of your products than a typical shopper.
3. Improve Customer Loyalty
Customers are more brand loyal when they shop during Q1. According to Amazon's internal data, Subscribe & Save (SnS) for health and wellness products is up +21% in Q1 compared to all other quarters.
On top of that, a large portion of customers who shopped in Q1 2023 came back and made a second purchase from January ’23 – August ‘23:
This illustrates that NYNY customers are not only there to make one-time purchases. Shoppers want to stick to their new healthy routines and self-improvement regimens, meaning they want brands they can be loyal to and purchase from time and time again.
How to Prep for NYNY?
Now that we’ve established why it's critical for brands to participate in NYNY, we’ve got some tactics that can help you achieve success for the tentpole. Before we begin diving into our tips and tricks, we want to stress one key thing:
Your NYNY strategy should not be confined to the event alone.
It is critical to lay the groundwork before NYNY so that customers are primed to look for your products the second the event begins, and it’s also equally important to have a post-NYNY strategy so the customers you acquire during the tentpole don’t fall by the wayside.
Bearing that in mind, here are some of our recommendations:
Have a Lead-Up Strategy
It is critical to ensure your brand name is top of mind for shoppers before the event even starts. There are many ways to do this, but here are a couple that are effective:
Ignite an always-on, full-funnel ad strategy. Use a variety of Amazon ad tools to connect with consumers at every stage of the buying journey. NYNY isn’t just about conversion but also about building new customer pools and brand loyalty. Be sure your goals are aligned with each stage of a consumer’s path to purchase (e.g., awareness = reach, consideration = detail page views, purchase = conversion, loyalty = SnS subscriptions).
Leverage brand awareness solutions. Direct a lot of effort and dollars toward prospecting campaigns to capture consumers’ attention early. This will help them remember your brand as the event begins to unfold, increasing the chances that they will buy from you. Video ads are a great way to drive awareness. Amazon has a wide array of video solutions including Sponsored Brand Video (SBV), Sponsored Display Video (SDV), Online Video (OLV), and Streaming TV (STV), so you’ll have to determine which tools fit best within your brand’s strategy and budget.
Increase basket-building on the Brand Store. Drive traffic from Amazon and non-Amazon sources (email, social media, influencers, etc.) to the Brand Store so shoppers can learn about your products and how they complement one another. Now is the time to show the consumer why it makes sense for them to purchase, say, a facial regimen or supplement routine – you want them to head into the New Year already aware that your products are what they need to achieve their resolutions.
2. Set Your NYNY Strategy
Now that you’ve done this lead-up work to ensure consumers are aware of your brand and products, it’s time to craft a strategy that will be in motion during the event. Here are some strategies we recommend:
Select deals ahead of time. You never want to go out of stock on Amazon, but it’s especially important to avoid it during tentpoles like NYNY. Identifying the deals you want to offer well ahead of the event is crucial for estimating the inventory requirements for each ASIN. This will ensure shoppers can buy from you throughout the entirety of the tentpole.
Scale prospecting and conversion campaigns. Take the top-of-funnel campaigns you initiated pre-event and broaden your targeting to include adjacent-aisle audiences. This will help more new customers find your NYNY deals and reach shoppers who may not be in-market for your products but could potentially be interested in them. We also recommend increasing your already-existing conversion-driving efforts, especially since most brands’ main goal for tentpoles is to increase sales. Be sure to retarget audiences you generated during the NYNY lead-up.
Optimize ad bidding. With NYNY’s increase in traffic, you can anticipate a rise in competition, resulting in cost per click (CPC) being elevated. Expect CPCs to increase 2x-3x above their typical cost and adjust your bids for must-win terms to appropriately align with this.
Utilize SnS coupons. NYNY consumers are more apt to subscribe to products that are part of their new healthier routine, especially if there are cost savings. Providing an SnS coupon makes their goals more convenient because they don’t have to manually order every month AND they receive a discount.
Drive off-Amazon traffic. Encouraging customers to visit your Amazon pages via social media, email marketing, influencers, etc. will help your products acquire even more visibility and purchases during this tentpole event. Your on-Amazon efforts like search, DSP, promotions, and content will further persuade shoppers to convert.
3. Reconnect with Shoppers Post-NYNY
Once the event is over, reach out to shoppers you converted during NYNY and convince them to become loyal consumers of your brand. Here are a few ways to accomplish this:
Encourage repeat purchases. Steer NYNY audiences toward repeat purchasing by using retargeting tactics available within Sponsored Display and Amazon DSP. Consider including ad copy that persuades consumers to keep buying your products to stick with their New Year’s resolutions.
Cross-sell or up-sell product. Increase visibility and sales for lesser-known or upgraded products by utilizing Sponsored Display and Sponsored Brand ads. Incorporate product differentiation messaging to cross-sell or up-sell repeat purchasers who bought your products during NYNY.
Promote new product launches. Leverage video ads to drive awareness of new items launched post-NYNY. This can be a great way to bring NYNY customers back into the fold and encourage them to start purchasing from your brand again.
Implement Customer Engagement emails. This is an excellent way to remind NYNY shoppers to repurchase products that are part of their New Year routine. The Tailored Audience beta makes this strategy even more impactful as it allows you to not only connect with brand followers but with repeat, recent, and high-spend customers.
Our team has seen strong success with our brands when we’ve cultivated this before, during, and after approach for NYNY. This type of strategy fosters lasting connections between brands and customers, maximizes reach and sales, and enables brands to thrive on Amazon in the long term.
Need support with your Amazon New Year, New You strategy?
Creating a plan for NYNY is incredibly complex since a well-designed strategy covers pre-, during-, and post-tentpole. Our GO team is here to partner with you and provide recommendations, guidance, and support for your event strategy. Contact us today.