Amazon Retail Media: what strategy should you adopt for the 2025 year-end peak season?

The fourth quarter (Q4) is the most strategic time of the year for brands on Amazon. Between Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season, the platform becomes the most competitive arena in e-commerce.
While consumer demand surges, advertising costs and competition for visibility also reach their annual peak.

Ignoring these peak periods would be a strategic mistake. According to Pattern, 93% of online shoppers visit Amazon to search for products, 63% to compare prices, and more than 50% to check information before purchasing.
In other words: Amazon has become the primary starting point for the customer journey.

During the last Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), sales attributed to advertising campaigns increased by +51%, while the number of unique customers rose by +36%.
At the same time, advertisers increased their media budgets in Q4 by +30% compared to Q3.

Given this competitive intensity, brands cannot simply “do a bit of advertising”: they need a real Amazon Retail Media strategy, integrating preparation, audience segmentation, media activation and precise before/during/after management.
That is the purpose of this article, which aims to be your concise practical guide in 5 steps.

Why Q4 is crucial for brands on Amazon

The figures speak for themselves. Amazon concentrates inspiration search, price comparison and final conversion. One in three consumers say they wait for Prime Day to make planned purchases, and 40% consider it the best opportunity of the year to find discounts.

For brands, Q4 2025 therefore represents:

• A growing market: +20% YoY sales expected in Q4

• A rise in traffic: explosion of searches and product page views

• A recruitment lever: a significant share of Q4 buyers are “new-to-brand” customers acquired thanks to events

• A post-event halo effect: beyond direct sales, brands that strongly activate in Q4 benefit from organic growth in the following weeks

In short: Q4 is a battle in which both short-term performance and long-term growth are at stake.

Step 1 - Ensure “Retail Readiness” ahead of peak periods

Before thinking about investing heavily in Amazon PPC or DSP advertising, the priority is to guarantee Retail Readiness. A campaign will never be effective if product pages, logistics or pricing are not ready.

Optimise your Amazon product listings: the basics

An optimised product listing is the foundation of any Amazon strategy:

• Clear, SEO-friendly titles including strategic keywords

• Structured bullet points: product benefits and concrete uses

• Impactful images: multiple views, lifestyle visuals, infographics

• Videos: significantly boost conversion rates

• Enriched A+ content: storytelling, comparisons, cross-selling

Example: a brand that updated its titles, descriptions and visuals before BFCM recorded an +18% increase in conversion rates (Amazon).

Manage stock and logistics: a must

In Q4, a stockout is synonymous with a direct loss. It is therefore essential to anticipate:

• Overstock bestsellers (+20 to +30% vs usual forecasts)

• Plan a buffer stock to avoid stockouts in case of unexpected peaks

• Use Amazon FBA to benefit from the Prime badge (fast delivery)

Maximise social proof

Customer reviews are crucial: 70% of buyers read reviews before purchasing on Amazon (Global Web Index). For Q4:

• Encourage your existing customers to leave reviews (emails, packaging, product pages)

• Respond to customer questions on your product pages

• Maintain a rating above 4 stars to stay competitive

Step 2 - Define your objectives and KPIs according to each period

Q4 is not a single event: each key moment has its own logic.

Prime Day & Black Friday: the opportunity for quick conversion

• Objective: maximise immediate sales and recruit new customers

• Key KPIs: ROAS, sales and new customer acquisition

• Campaigns: aggressive bids, retargeting, recent lookalike audiences

Christmas & New Year: the time for inspiration and loyalty

• Objective: stand out early in the gift-shopping journey

• Key KPIs: impressions, add-to-cart, DPV (Detail Page Views), new-to-brand

• Campaigns: inspirational content (videos, Brand Store, A+), exploratory audiences (in-market, lifestyle, demographic)

Read also: How to maximise peak commercial periods on Amazon

Avoid these three mistakes to avoid at all costs:

• Focusing only on short-term ROAS and neglecting CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)

• Failing to differentiate objectives by period (pre-peak vs peak vs post-event)

• Underestimating the organic halo effect after events

Step 3 - Activate audiences via Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)

AMC is a major asset for creating personalised audience segments.

Example:

• Basket abandoners: users who added a product without purchasing

• Historical buyers: customers who bought last Christmas but not since

• Exposed prospects: consumers who saw an advert but did not purchase

We recommend combining hot audiences (retargeting) and cold audiences (prospecting). This balanced approach allows you to maximise both immediate conversion and long-term growth.

Step 4 - Optimise sponsored ads and DSP campaigns

Focus on the top of search

Visibility in “Top of Search” is decisive. According to Amazon, for every +10% of impressions at the top of the page:

• ROAS increases by +9% for Sponsored Brands

• ROAS increases by +4% for Sponsored Products
  Moreover, sales attributed to advertising are multiplied by 2.2 to 2.3 when ads appear at the top of the page.

Activate the full funnel

In an Amazon ecosystem that has become ultra-competitive, the key is no longer just to capture demand, but to create it. Brands that perform best no longer just appear when the consumer searches: they enter their mind earlier, when the desire begins to form.

This is where Amazon DSP makes a real difference. By leveraging Amazon’s unique data – purchase intentions, browsing histories, transactional signals – it allows you to reach audiences beyond the platform: media sites, lifestyle blogs, video platforms…
So you can inspire before selling, create desire before search, and nurture the funnel from its very source.

• Awareness (September - October): videos, Sponsored Brands and DSP campaigns to inspire and make the brand emerge beyond Amazon

• Consideration (October - November): upper-funnel display campaigns and similar audiences to maintain interest and accompany purchase consideration

• Conversion (Black Friday / Cyber Monday): Sponsored Products and DSP retargeting to turn intent into action

• Loyalty (December): DSP cross-sell and new-to-brand campaigns to extend the relationship and nurture newly acquired customers

Take advantage of 2025 innovations

• Bid adjustments up to +900% (versus +99% previously) to secure Top of Search

• Boosted Audiences: direct integration of AMC signals into Sponsored Ads

• New click-attributed metrics: enable CPC and CPM comparison on a consistent basis

Step 5 - Manage the before, during and after of key periods

A Q4 strategy cannot be improvised: it must be prepared in three phases.

1. Before (September – October)

• Build and test audience segments

• Update Stores with gifting themes

• Deploy video and branding campaigns to emerge early

2. During (November – Black Friday / Cyber Monday)

• Significantly increase bids

• Prioritise retargeting: basket abandoners, recent visitors

• Focus on conversion with Sponsored Products and Display

3. After (December – Holidays & Post-Event)

• Re-engage new customers with cross-sell / upsell campaigns

• Build loyalty with “new-to-brand” audiences

• Consolidate awareness with Sponsored Brands and Display retargeting

Winning the Q4 battle on Amazon in 2025

Q4 2025 will be marked by unprecedented advertising intensity: rising CPCs, the boom of video formats, and the growing power of AI and AMC signals.

In this context, success does not depend on a single lever but on an integrated strategy:

• Prepare product listings and logistics

• Define differentiated objectives for each period

• Activate relevant audiences via AMC

• Optimise Sponsored Ads and DSP campaigns with a full-funnel approach

• Plan and manage each phase - before, during and after - with precision

Brands that balance short-term impact with long-term strategy will make the most of the Peak Season, boosting immediate sales while building a sustainable customer base.

Do you want to build an effective Retail Media strategy for Q4 2025?
Contact our Amazon Retail Media agency and discover how our experts can boost your sales.

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