Prime Day used to be a frantic 48-hour blitz. Now it’s 96 hours of "always-on" chaos masquerading as opportunity. The big change? Agencies must ditch their tried-and-fried two-day war chest strategy. Four days of action means four pacing peaks, each with its own micro-behavioural rhythm.

Front-loading spend on Day 1 like it’s 2023? That’ll get you eaten alive by smarter bidders by Day 3. Amazon’s nudging brands to drop 100% daily spend increases during the event, essentially suggesting you burn a quarter of your monthly budget every day for four days straight. Bold. Unhinged. Welcome to 2025 .

“Today’s Big Deals” isn’t just a gimmick—it’s a media moment. The midnight refresh of AI-curated themes means predictable traffic spikes and a new playbook for DSP traders. Think reactive planning meets thematic hijacking. Your creative now needs to align with today’s vibes, not just product categories.

With AI bundling products by occasion, lifestyle, and purchasing patterns, this is less about demographics and more about behaviours—served hot and changing daily. It’s an audience segmentation goldmine—if your activation team hasn’t already rage-quit from the workload .

The real headache? Budget spread.

CPCs likely won’t spike per day the way they did in the two-day model, but the total investment? Oh, that’s going up. Way up. With 60–70% sales lift expected, but lower daily intensity post-Day 2, agencies will need to ride a flatter but longer wave. Get your pacing scripts ready. And maybe cancel your weekend plans .

Expect to see clever traders reserving chunks of spend for Day 3–4 reactivation—when lazy competitors are out of budget and conversions are still live. You snooze, you lose… and get outbid by the interns at a Shopify brand with $200 and no shame.

The longer Prime Day lingers, the bigger the shadow it casts. Competitors are now pricing match alerts, search volume shifts, and influencer collabs across four days, not two. That’s a bigger halo effect. More windows for comparison shopping. Fewer impulse buys. And an even messier customer journey to stitch together post-mortem .

Your ROAS spreadsheet is about to need a therapist.

Let’s talk ops.

Amazon Marketing Stream is giving hourly updates, not daily. That means real-time decisions are no longer optional—they’re survival. Got someone monitoring your Amazon DSP bids at 3AM? You will now. Or you’ll be sitting on an ad budget while your competitors are scooping up impressions in their sleep .

Oh, and don’t forget stock management. Running out of inventory halfway through Day 3? That’s now three days of wasted ad spend instead of one. It’s not just programmatic—it’s panicmatic.

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Until next time,
David