Report: Radio Powers Amazon Prime Day 2018

According to Amazon, their 2018 Prime Day Sale was their biggest success yet, with Prime members buying more than 100 million products. Amazon leveraged a healthy media mix of AM/FM radio, TV, and online advertising to build awareness of the event.

How did media fare?

Westwood One, the largest audio network in the U.S., partnered with research firm Ipsos to understand how advertising helped Amazon drive sales and reach its key demographics.

 Key findings from the study conducted by IPSOS of 2010 respondents during the full Amazon Prime Day 36-hour event:

Technological glitches were felt!

• 18% of those who shopped experienced issues with the site.
• 28% of Amazon Prime members had issues with the site.

Awareness skewed older: Consistent with our findings from the first day, awareness among the 55+ demo was the highest at 82%.

Purchases skewed younger: Though older demographics were more aware, Millennials 18-34 were bigger purchasers with 25% buying something from the sale.

Sales conversion was strong for radio: For adults 18+, sales conversion for radio was 25%, nearly equal to the sales version of online ads which was 26%. Both were higher than television.

Heavy radio listeners made more purchases: Heavy radio listeners were more likely to make an Amazon Prime Day purchase than heavy TV viewers and heavy online users.

Radio’s audience composition of those who recalled Prime Day advertising was younger than TV’s: 32% of those who recalled Prime Day radio advertising were Millennials. Only 21% of those who recalled Prime Day TV advertising were in the 18-34 age bracket. Those who recalled Prime Day TV advertising skewed older, as 45% of the audience fell in the 55+ range. Only 34% of those who recalled Prime Day radio ads were 55+.

Frequent listeners of highly engaged formats purchased more: Formats like Spanish radio (54%), Sports (38%), Top 40 (31%), NPR (31%), and R&B/Hip-Hop (30%) saw a higher percentage of Amazon Prime Day purchases.