Key takeaways
- Count four phases back from the start date Amazon announces: preparation 2 to 3 weeks out, the lead-in, the event days and the days after.
- Check stock first: days of cover = units you can sell ÷ expected units per day in the sale. Sponsored Products ads stop when a product is out of stock.
- On event days, project each campaign's run-out time (hours since midnight × daily budget ÷ spend so far) and raise budgets for on-target campaigns before they stop.
- A coupon supports a higher bid only if conversion rate rises by a bigger factor than profit per order falls. Break-even CPC (cost per click) = conversion rate × profit per order before ad spend.
- Wind bids back when the sale ends, and judge results after the attribution window: 7 days for Sponsored Products (sellers), 14 for Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display.
An Amazon Great Indian Festival ads strategy works in four phases: prepare 2 to 3 weeks before the sale, raise budgets in steps during the lead-in, keep your best campaigns running on event days, and wind down afterwards. On event days, guard against a winning campaign running out of budget by midday, because it then shows no ads for the rest of that day. The same plan works for Diwali, Prime Day and Amazon's other sale events.
An Amazon Great Indian Festival ads strategy in four phases
Amazon sale event advertising comes down to four jobs, done in order. Amazon announces sale dates each year, so count back from the start date it announces. If your sale has already begun, skip to the event-day section.
| Phase | When | The job |
|---|---|---|
| Prepare | 2 to 3 weeks before | Stock, search terms, early campaigns, hero products |
| Lead-in | The last few days before | Raise budgets in steps; confirm deals and ads are live |
| Event days | The sale itself | Keep winners in budget; bid on sale-day numbers |
| After | From the day it ends | Wind bids back, retarget, record what you learned |
2 to 3 weeks before: stock, search terms, campaigns and hero products
Do the slow work first: stock takes time to reach Amazon, and new campaigns need clicks before their numbers mean anything.
Check stock cover for the event
An ad can't sell a product nobody can buy. A Sponsored Products ad stops showing when its product is out of stock or loses the featured offer (the Buy Box).
Days of cover = units you can sell ÷ expected units per day in the sale
Expected units per day = normal daily units × your event multiple, which is daily units in your last comparable sale ÷ daily units in the four weeks before it. Count only stock that Amazon has received, or that you ship yourself, and check Seller Central for any inbound cut-off Amazon sets for the event.
Worked example. A product normally sells 20 units a day and sold 60 a day in your last sale, a multiple of 3. A 10-day event needs 600 units, so 450 units at the fulfilment centre run out around day 8 (450 ÷ 60 = 7.5). Restock before the cut-off, or plan to cut its ad budget once cover drops below the days left. With no past sale, you have no multiple to copy, so check cover daily.
Harvest the search terms that already convert
Your search term report already shows which searches led to orders. Move them into exact match now, while there is time to see how they perform. Download the Sponsored Products search term report for the longest range the console offers and sort it by orders. Then:
- Add searches that have orders at an ACoS (ad spend ÷ ad sales) at or under your target, for example two or more orders, as exact-match keywords in a manual campaign.
- Add a negative exact for any search that has spent more than your target cost per order (price × target ACoS) without an order.
- If you're brand-registered, the Search Query Performance report in Brand Analytics shows the searches that bring you purchases, organic ones included. Check which of them your ads don't target yet.
Save the report after the sale too, because the console only keeps recent search term data. Our guides to finding negative keywords and turning Search Query Performance data into bids go step by step.
Launch event campaigns early so they have history
Launch new campaigns 2 to 3 weeks before the sale. Launched on day one, they start with no clicks or conversion rate to set bids from.
Worked example. A campaign started 14 days early at ₹1,000 a day and ₹10 per click buys about 1,400 clicks before the sale. At a 10% conversion rate (orders ÷ clicks), that is about 140 orders showing which search terms and bids work.
Submit Sponsored Brands ads early too. Amazon reviews them before they run, and a late rejection leaves no time to fix and resubmit.
Pick hero products with four checks
Put the extra budget behind a short list of hero products that pass four checks:
- Stock cover at least as long as the event.
- Positive profit per order at the deal price, before ad spend. The Amazon profit calculator works it out after fees and GST.
- A conversion rate at or above your account's recent average.
- A deal or coupon approved, if you plan to run one.
Products that fail a check keep their normal budgets, without the extra.
The lead-in days: raise budgets in steps and confirm what's live
Raise budgets before the sale and leave bids alone. A higher bid can raise what you pay on every click (your CPC, cost per click = spend ÷ clicks); a higher budget only lets a campaign keep buying clicks at its current price. Size each hero campaign's budget from the orders you want:
Daily budget = target orders per day × cost per order, where cost per order = CPC ÷ conversion rate
Worked example. You want 50 orders a day. In your last sale the campaign paid ₹12 per click and converted 12% of clicks, so an order cost ₹100 and it needs ₹5,000 a day. Setting ₹7,500 leaves room for a busier day.
Amazon's budget rules can raise a campaign's budget by a percentage for the dates you choose, and they end on their own. Before day one, confirm that deals and coupons show on the product page, your bid maths uses the price shoppers will pay, stock has been received, and Sponsored Brands ads are approved. If Amazon announces early access for Prime members, treat that day as day one.
If clicks rise in the lead-in but conversion falls, shoppers may be waiting for sale prices. Hold bids, because lower conversion means a lower maximum CPC.
Event days: budget headroom, pacing and hourly checks
Keep on-target campaigns in budget until midnight. A campaign that spends its daily budget stops showing ads until the budget resets the next day.
Pace budgets so winners don't run out by midday
Check hero campaigns a few times a day and estimate when each will run out at its current pace:
Run-out time ≈ hours since midnight × daily budget ÷ spend so far
Worked example. A campaign with an ₹8,000 budget has spent ₹5,500 by 11 AM, so it runs out at about 4 PM (11 × 8,000 ÷ 5,500 = 16). If its ACoS so far is at or under target, raise the budget now. If it is well above, let it stop or lower its bids.
The formula assumes even spending through the day; if you kept hourly data from your last sale, compare against that curve.
Bid and adjust placements on sale-day numbers
Recompute your maximum CPC with the deal price and the conversion rate you are seeing in the sale:
Max CPC = conversion rate × price the shopper pays × target ACoS
Set that target ACoS from your margin at the deal price, which is lower than usual. In the placement report, raise the top-of-search adjustment only where top-of-search ACoS is under target and top-of-search impression share (the share of eligible top-of-search impressions you won) is low. Check the CPC you actually pay, because dynamic bidding and placement adjustments both move it away from the bid you typed.
Watch hourly data, but judge ACoS later
Hourly data shows where money goes today, not today's final ACoS. Amazon credits an order to the day of the ad click behind it, for up to 7 days on Sponsored Products (sellers) and 14 days on Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, so same-day ACoS reads high. Don't cut a campaign in the afternoon for being slightly over target.
At each check, look at spend against budget, CPC against your maximum, orders and units left for hero products, and whether each still has the featured offer. Amazon Marketing Stream, part of the Amazon Ads API, sends hourly data to the tools you connect. Our guide to hourly Amazon ads data covers its traps.
Coupons, deals and PPC: how a badge changes the bid you can afford
A coupon or deal supports a higher bid only if it lifts your conversion rate by a bigger factor than it cuts your profit per order. It can lift click-through rate (clicks ÷ impressions) and conversion rate because the badge travels with your ads: a coupon shows in search results, sponsored ones included, and on the product page, and a deal carries its own badge. What decides your bid is break-even CPC, the most you can pay per click before an order loses money:
Break-even CPC = conversion rate × profit per order before ad spend
Worked example. Your product sells for ₹999 and leaves ₹300 per order before ad spend, after Amazon fees, GST and product cost. At a 10% conversion rate, break-even CPC is ₹30. A ₹100 coupon cuts profit per order to ₹200, before any coupon fee. If conversion rises to 14%, break-even CPC falls to ₹28. If it rises to 16%, break-even CPC goes up to ₹32.
Profit fell by a third here, so conversion had to rise by half, from 10% to above 15%, just to stand still. Subtract any coupon or deal fee in Seller Central's current terms from profit per order, and when a deal and a coupon both apply, use the price the shopper pays. Judge a coupon on conversion rate and profit per order, not ROAS (ad sales ÷ ad spend) alone, against a similar week without one.
After the sale: retarget, wind bids back, write down what you learned
Put bids and budgets back to normal within a day of the sale ending. Sale bids were set for a deal price and a sale conversion rate.
Worked example. If your max CPC was ₹25 in the sale and is ₹20 at normal prices, sale bids left running pay up to 25% more per click than your numbers allow.
Budget rules end on the date you set, but budgets you raised by hand stay raised. With Sponsored Display (sellers need Brand Registry), reach shoppers who viewed your product pages (views remarketing) and cross-sell to buyers (purchases remarketing), each within a lookback window you choose.
Judge the event once the attribution window closes, 7 days after the last sale day for Sponsored Products (sellers) and 14 for Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Then record, for each hero product:
| Record | What it sets next time |
|---|---|
| Units sold against your forecast, and any stock-out date | Your event multiple and stock order |
| Hours each campaign was out of budget | Your event budgets |
| CPC and conversion rate against normal days | Your sale-day max CPC |
| ACoS and TACoS (ad spend ÷ total sales), in the sale and the two weeks after | Whether the sale added sales or only moved them |
Our guide to TACoS vs ACoS explains the last row. ScaleSKUs reads each campaign's budget use through the day from Amazon Marketing Stream, so you can see which winners are on course to run out and approve a budget raise before they stop. Nothing changes on Amazon without your approval, and live changes need two-factor verification.
Frequently asked questions
When does the Great Indian Festival start this year?
Amazon announces the dates each year, so watch Amazon.in and Seller Central. Then count back: preparation starts 2 to 3 weeks before, and the lead-in is the last few days before the first sale day.
Should I raise bids or budgets first for a sale?
Budgets. A campaign that is out of budget shows no ads whatever its bid, and a higher bid can raise what you pay on every click. Raise bids only where the max CPC formula, run on the deal price and sale-day conversion, shows room.
How is a Prime Day ads strategy in India different?
The phases are the same, but Prime Day deals are for Prime members, so any conversion lift from a deal comes from them. Plan bids and budgets from your last Prime Day's numbers, not your last Great Indian Festival.