Which Amazon products should you promote at peak season?

Every brand going into peak season faces the same decision, and most don’t spend nearly enough time on it: which products should we promote, and which should we let ride the traffic that deal events naturally generate?

The instinct is usually to promote as much as possible. More deals means more visibility, more traffic, more revenue. It sounds logical. But deal participation on Amazon comes with real costs: required discount depths that compress margin, inventory commitments that tie up working capital, and advertising investment needed to support deal visibility. Promote everything, and you’re spreading those costs across your full catalogue without the returns to justify it.

The brands that consistently outperform during Amazon peak season events are not the ones with the most deals. They’re the ones with the right deals.

The gap between promoted and unpromoted performance

Promoted ASINs see dramatically higher uplifts than unpromoted ones during peak events, and the gap is at its widest at the largest events. This is well established in Amazon selling practice.

What matters equally is that unpromoted products still see meaningful performance uplifts during peak season. Browsing increases across the entire catalogue. Amazon's algorithm surfaces related listings alongside deal ASINs. The general uplift in purchase intent carries across categories. This means precise deal selection, not maximum participation, is the goal.

The majority of peak season revenue consistently flows through a minority of promoted ASINs. Precision beats volume every time.

A framework for Amazon ASIN selection

The most effective approach to Amazon peak season deal selection considers four factors together. Work through each one before every major event:

• 1. Commercial headroom. Does the product have enough margin to support the required discount depth and still make commercial sense? Amazon's deal types have minimum discount requirements that vary by type and category. Before anything else, the margin maths needs to work.
• 2. Category demand. Does this category spike at this event? Some categories see dramatically stronger uplifts during BFCM than at earlier events, while high-ticket discretionary categories tend to underperform at October Prime. Understanding your category's pattern across events is essential before committing.
• 3. Competitive position. Will a deal drive genuinely incremental purchases, or will it shift the timing for shoppers already planning to buy? In highly competitive categories, a deal may be essential to stay visible. Where you already have a strong organic presence, the case for discounting is weaker.
• 4. New customer potential. Peak season is one of the best opportunities to introduce a product to shoppers who haven’t encountered your brand. Over 80% of Prime members surveyed ahead of Prime Day 2025 expected to shop the event, with two-thirds looking for discounts of at least 30%. Products with strong new customer potential should be weighted more heavily in your selection.

Deal types: not every ASIN qualifies

Understanding Amazon's deal type landscape before building a promotional plan is essential. The options fall into two broad categories:

• Amazon-nominated placements (Top Deals, Best Deals, Lightning Deals). These generate the strongest visibility through dedicated placement on Amazon's event pages and prominent badging, but eligibility is determined by Amazon based on factors including star rating, sales history, and discount depth. If an ASIN isn’t surfaced in Seller Central or confirmed by an Amazon account manager, it can’t participate regardless of planning or inventory position.
• Broadly accessible promotions (Prime Exclusive Discounts, Coupons, Strikethrough pricing). These don’t require Amazon nomination and are the primary levers for most products during peak events. Prime Exclusive Discounts in particular carry a visible badge in search results and have driven strong conversion performance across a wide range of categories.

Confirming eligibility by ASIN before submission deadlines, not after, is one of the most frequently overlooked steps in Amazon deal strategy. Not every product will qualify for the deal type you plan for, regardless of inventory position.

Planning for the unpromoted catalogue

Once your promoted ASIN selection is confirmed, plan deliberately for the rest of your catalogue. Unpromoted products still see meaningful traffic uplifts during peak events. Well optimised and well stocked listings without deals capture that secondary opportunity without the margin cost of promotion.

Ensuring your non-deal listings are retail-ready before each event is one of the lowest effort, highest return actions available in peak season preparation.

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