sold during Prime Day
during Prime Day
on its ecommerce site
In a crowded space like beauty and skincare, brands like SiO Beauty are always looking for ways to stand out among the competition. This is particularly important during key shopping seasons, like the holidays and seasonal sales events. SiO is also an Amazon seller, so Amazon shopping events like Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days are another way to get the brand in front of millions of shoppers and ultimately help drive sales.
Because SiO offers Buy with Prime on its ecommerce site, the brand can maximize the excitement and momentum of Amazon shopping events across more channels. Prime members can shop SiO deals on both Amazon.com and SiOBeauty.com.
The brand had been selling on Amazon since April 2017, but was looking for a way to grow across channels after Amazon.com sales plateaued after the pandemic. SiO launched Buy with Prime on its own ecommerce site in January 2023.
“Amazon is a leading marketplace service, so it was a no-brainer to sell on there,” says Scott Mast, Director of Business Operations at SiO. “And when we heard about Buy with Prime, it was a similar scenario. We told our agency at the time, ‘We need to get that on our site.’ ”
Since launching Buy with Prime, SiO has been a consistent presence in Amazon and holiday shopping events. The team has seen how offering Prime shopping benefits on SiO’s site during key sales events is a win for shoppers and a win for the business. Participating in these events and using the trust of Prime to stand out in the crowd has helped SiO boost order volume, units sold, and return on ad spend (ROAS).
A glimpse into Prime’s potential
After building up SiO’s Buy with Prime product catalog and testing the checkout solution on its site for several months, the team participated in a Buy with Prime co-marketing campaign for the 2023 Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend. From November 17–27, SiO offered deep discounts on select products that Prime members could purchase directly on its ecommerce site. The brand leveraged the Buy with Prime marketing toolkit to create ads and customer outreach that featured the Buy with Prime badge alongside SiO brand messaging and products. As a hero merchant for the holiday sales event, SiO was also featured in Buy with Prime Instagram ads and on the Amazon.com landing page.
“The Black Friday-Cyber Monday shopping event was really good for us,” Scott says, with about 20% of site orders going through Buy with Prime. Because it was still early in SiO’s Buy with Prime journey, the results of the event gave the team a good idea of the potential of Buy with Prime.
It also meant that those 20% of orders were being fully handled by Amazon—picking, packing, shipping, returns, and even customer service. Amazon fulfills orders from inventory SiO already has at fulfillment centers for its Amazon.com business, and customer service for Buy with Prime orders is handled by a dedicated Amazon team through Buy with Prime Assist.
Tapping the trust of Prime
Since launching the business in 2016, with a spot on the Home Shopping Network, SiO has been dedicated to its consumer: creating high-quality products that help consumers feel more confident, and selling those products in all the channels where its consumers shop.
That same customer obsession is why the team added Buy with Prime to its ecommerce site.
“Anything that looks good for customers, we try to add it,” Scott says. “Everybody knows that Amazon is a customer-first company. So having Prime shopping benefits on our site gives a legitimacy to us, giving shoppers a sense of trust.”
When shoppers see the Buy with Prime badge on a merchant’s ecommerce site, they know that they’ll get a shopping experience like the one they love from Amazon. Prime members can shop eligible products on SiO’s site and check out using their Prime membership to get fast, free delivery and easy returns.
That fast, free delivery is particularly important in beauty and skincare, where consumers not only have lots of brands vying for their dollars, but also want their products shipped fast. SiO offers express shipping to shoppers, but it comes at a premium. And free shipping is only available for orders at a certain price threshold.
“We didn’t always offer expedited shipping, so when we originally launched on Amazon.com, Prime free shipping was the only expedited option we offered,” Scott explains. “But now that we offer Buy with Prime on our site, Prime members see that there’s a chance to get fast and free shipping. It’s one less barrier to purchasing.”
And on SiO’s Buy with Prime collection page, shoppers also see the familiar Prime Check and delivery estimate that lets them know when the product will arrive if they check out using Buy with Prime.
Influx of orders on Prime Day
This year, SiO and 141 other merchants participated in the Prime Day sales event with Buy with Prime. From July 8-17, Buy with Prime promoted SiO and other participating brands across channels, helping to drive awareness and traffic. SiO executed some of its own marketing efforts for Prime Day, as well as for the brand’s birthday in July.
Over the two days of Prime Day 2024 alone, July 16-17, SiO saw 1127% in incremental uplift for daily average units sold compared to the pre-event baseline from June 1-30. “That’s huge!” says Scott. “Now, if we could maintain that trend, that would be awesome.”
During the entire sales event period, from July 8-17, SiO saw a 256% increase in Buy with Prime units sold compared to the baseline. And across its entire site, SiO saw a 35.7% increase in total units sold.
Although Black Friday-Cyber Monday 2023 was SiO’s most successful Buy with Prime sales event based on total orders, Prime Day 2024 was the most successful on a per day average, according to Scott.
Part of a broader promotional strategy
In addition to the Buy with Prime co-marketing campaign for Prime Day, SiO also ran an Amazon DSP ad campaign to help drive traffic to its site. Amazon DSP is an Amazon Ads demand-side platform (DSP) solution that has a unique offering for Buy with Prime merchants. It uses exclusive Amazon insights and shopping signals to reach the most relevant audiences off of Amazon, and then attract them to merchants’ ecommerce sites. Tapping into an expansive ad placement network across the web, SiO was able to remarket to shoppers who expressed interest in its products, or similar products and categories on Amazon.com, and point them directly to Buy with Prime products on SiOBeauty.com.
“We’ve run DSP campaigns for our Amazon.com listings and always had a strong ROAS, so we jumped at the chance to use Amazon DSP for the Buy with Prime products on our dotcom,” Scott explains.
The two-part Amazon DSP campaign ran from July 2 to October 9, featuring display ads with the familiar Buy with Prime badge and relevant SiO products, across thousands of sites and apps. As hoped, the campaign saw ROAS of 7.2x across SiO’s ecommerce site and combined ROAS of 7.9x across both its site and Amazon.com.
Although the campaign hadn’t reached its full momentum for Prime Day, the display ads supported other marketing efforts and helped point more traffic to the brand’s site.
Because the second part of the Amazon DSP campaign ran during Prime Big Deal Days October 8-9, SiO was able to maximize marketing efforts and saw a spike in ROAS. During the week of Prime Big Deal Days, SiO saw ROAS of 18.2x.
“We haven’t seen that return anywhere else,” Scott says. “Using Amazon DSP for our Buy with Prime products has performed better than any other display ads we’ve run.”
Although many Buy with Prime merchants are seeing value in Amazon DSP and Amazon sales events as separate strategies, SiO wanted to optimize them at the same time to stand out among the competition during such an important shopping event. With the holidays just around the corner, the team plans to continue running Amazon DSP for Buy with Prime and tapping the power of Prime to help boost sales once again for Black Friday-Cyber Monday.
Learn more about Buy with Prime and Amazon DSP.