Marketers Suggest Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is an Ideal Time for Influencers to Introduce New Products
It was Amazon’s first ever Big Spring Sale that took place last week. For the first time, there were discounts on seasonal items for this period, as well as social media influencers taking advantage of it to drive traffic to their pages for sales.
Among the influencers who benefited from the Amazon Spring Break Sale was lifestyle influencer Sana Sherwani, who has more than 500,000 TikTok followers. According to Sherwani, maximizing earnings becomes a priority for her. She identifies hosting essentials, cleaning gadgets, and outdoor furniture as key items to promote. Sherwani customizes her Amazon Shop early to align with anticipated trends, since she has access to a sneak peek at sale items two weeks in advance. In order to curate her store with products that resonate with her audience, she actively engages her followers through social media.
“These sales have helped me significantly boost my earnings without having to solely rely on brand partnerships,” said Sherwani. “By carefully curating products my audience loves, focusing on those with the highest clicks from previous content, and leveraging tools like URLgenius, I was able to exceed my goal of tripling my commissions during Amazon’s Spring Sale.”
Sherwani emphasizes the importance of building trust with her audience, maintaining authenticity, and understanding her audience. By focusing on content that resonates with her followers, she avoids overloading them with excessive links. Sherwani prioritizes sharing honest reviews, even for products that did not meet her expectations, in order to build trust with her followers. She is able to create more targeted content by engaging her audience with polls in her Stories. This provides her with valuable insight into their shopping interests.
It has been suggested by marketers that Amazon is conducting an experimental sale this Spring, and because of this it could be a good time for influencers and content creators to introduce new products organically to their audiences through their accounts.
Contrasting Strategies: TikTok and Amazon’s Approaches to Influencer Marketing and Shoppable Features
Last year, TikTok launched its shoppable features after months of testing, and there are distinct differences between them. Amazon’s approach to influence marketing typically focuses on product promotion through curated storefronts and affiliate links, emphasizing product discovery and direct sales. TikTok’s influencer marketing, on the other hand, is based on organic, user-generated content that promotes products in an authentic and spontaneous way, fostering engagement and virality.
Brian Klais, founder and CEO of URLgenius, suggests that it may be premature to draw definitive conclusions about TikTok’s role as a shopping platform, as users are still adapting to this concept. Klais emphasizes that each shopping platform strives to distinguish itself by leveraging its unique strengths. (Read more about how URLGenuis positioned itself with brands and creators to grow revenue here)
“Amazon offers the largest product inventory, wide adoption of one-click purchases, and more mature commerce capabilities and storefronts,” said Klais. “TikTok, whose growth has been driven by content, offers a wider range of options for creators to monetize their time through both rewards for content as well as product sales.”
It is not only Klais who has expressed this opinion, Aliza Freud, founder of the influencer marketing agency SheSpeaks, added Amazon has personalized storefronts as opposed to TikTok which has just a brand storefront. Through shopping/event events, video clips, and customizable lists that influencers can customize, Amazon has developed a strong storefront presence, which might lead consumers to shop there more often. In comparison to shopping for individual items through the brand’s storefront that an influencer has linked to a specific TikTok video, you can shop all the items an influencer has curated in one place on Amazon.
“Amazon and Amazon Prime have been around much longer than TikTok and TikTok Shop, and people are more familiar with the deals. Combining that with Amazon’s affiliate platform being more established, it seems like more influencers are continuing to focus their time and efforts on Amazon shopping vs. TikTok,” said Freud.
Klais said URLGenuis experienced a 26% surge in traffic during the Spring Sale, whereas Prime Day witnessed a remarkable growth of over 100% in traffic. Klais noted a 20% increase in deep links, indicating considerable adoption by influencers to capitalize on the sale.
Amazon Spring Sale Earning Potential
According to Sherwani, when considering selling items and potential earnings, she evaluates the effectiveness of both Amazon Shop and TikTok Shop. She weighs the benefits of each platform based on factors such as reach, engagement, and conversion rates. Ultimately, Sherwani seeks to maximize her sales and earning potential by strategically leveraging the strengths of both platforms.
“When it comes to choosing between Amazon Shop and TikTok Shop for selling items and the potential for earnings, my preference leans towards Amazon Shop,” said Sherwani. “Its wide range of product categories, covering everything from home goods, electronics, and books to beauty essentials, offers a broader scope catering to how my followers prefer to shop at the moment.”
Freud observed that creators at the Macro+ level (500k+ followers) possess a larger potential audience to influence compared to Nano creators. However, influencers can benefit from the sale regardless of their follower count because they don’t have to manage fulfillment through Amazon, as they would on Etsy, for example. Freud said creator or influencer who invests time in curating and promoting shopping lists or recommendations to their community can truly capitalize on the opportunity.
Maximizing Earnings: Effective Strategies for Creators and Influencers to Harness Amazon’s Sale
Through curating tailored product recommendations aligned with the interests of their audiences and actively promoting them across their platforms, creators and influencers can maximize their earnings during Amazon’s sale, utilizing Amazon’s extensive reach and increasing conversion rates. Additionally, utilizing affiliate links and engaging with their audience through interactive content such as polls or Q&A sessions can further enhance their earnings potential during the sale.
“The paradox of choice plagues all online sales of this nature. There is such a high volume of items on sale that it’s impossible for consumers to see everything and actually makes it [MORE] difficult to shop, unless there is a specific item they know they’ve been wanting to buy,” said Freud.
Klais suggested that the key to effectively maximizing these significant sales moments during the Amazon Spring Break Sale is to ensure smooth app engagement throughout the event. Consumers should be guided to their desired destination within the Amazon app seamlessly, whether they are looking for an influencer’s storefront, a specific product page, or a curated collection of items.
“The aim is to streamline the shopping experience by minimizing unnecessary steps. Employing deep linking in social media promotions can bypass the need for web logins, directly transporting shoppers to the desired destination,” said Klais.
