Consumer Snapshot: Shoppers Get a Head Start on Holiday Shopping This Prime Day

This year’s October Prime Big Deal Day event was a precursor for the Q4 holiday season, as “prosumers” – a more price-sensitive and savvy shopper – kicked off the quarter with a 61% increase in retail sales on Amazon versus the previous week.

According to Marshal Cohen, Chief Retail Advisor at global market research firm Circana, “Holiday 2025 will be full of surprises and challenges – from comparisons to the 2024 election impact and continuous economic uncertainty…marketers will need to be diligent in their efforts to inspire the consumer, whether it is tapping into pent-up demand for products from key industries, like apparel, toys, and technology, or appealing to the consumer’s core value of the moment – whether price or priority.”

With early Q4 results looking promising, we decided to take a closer look at MNTN Performance TV data to help us get a sense of how consumer action is stacking up as we head deeper into the quarter.

The Holiday Hammock Is in Full Effect

We’ve previously touched on the “holiday hammock,” a time period bookended by October’s Prime Day and Cyber Monday, punctuated with smaller promotional events in between. A total $9.1 billion was spent on Amazon this Prime Day, up 7.3% from last year. Not a bad start, but to learn more we decided to compare this year’s Q4 Prime Day to 2024’s for CTV advertisers on the MNTN platform. Based on a similar analysis of July’s Prime Day, we expected there to be a ripple effect that would benefit other ecommerce retailers. Consumers are primed (pun intended) to shop online, not just on Amazon, but for every ecommerce brand out there. The same was true this time — we found that there was significant improvement across metrics like return on ad spend (ROAS), conversions, and visits. 

Notably, there was a 155% increase in average order value for MNTN advertisers compared to last year — a sign that shoppers were frontloading their holiday buys early instead of waiting until Black Friday Cyber Monday.

October’s Prime Day Shifts Shoppers to Higher-Value Transactions

Similarly, credit / debit-card tracking company Facetus reported an increase of average order value from a baseline of $36.58 to $45.88 on day one, and $48.01 on day two. This chart demonstrates Amazon’s Prime Day strategy, which essentially moves shoppers into higher basket value transactions. 

When looking at the $0 – $50 bar chart above, the percentage of shoppers purchasing items between $0 – $50 dropped from 82% to 78%, while the percentage of shoppers spending $50 and up increased from baseline. This indicates that shoppers are investing more during Prime Day than non-promotional time periods. 

Based on the higher than average average order values that we have seen in our Performance TV data during this time period, advertisers should be having their campaigns ready to go live at the start of the quarter (if not, even earlier) and also promoting bundled deals in their creative and messaging to make the most of the heightened consumer spend during this time.

Shoppers Used the Weeks Leading Up to Prime Day for Shortlisting and Planning

Turns out it’s not only Santa Claus who is making lists and checking them twice. According to financial and investment publication Barrons, U.S. web traffic was up 21% in the first 36 hours of Prime Day versus the previous five days, as shoppers browsed and shortlisted their purchases. But what about the time frame leading up to this? 

We analyzed MNTN Performance TV data in the 2-week period before Prime Day, and saw a rise in both visits and conversions in this time period.

This tells us two things: shoppers were taking stock of their holiday shopping checklists as shown in the uptick in online browsing activity. But they weren’t exactly waiting for promotions like Prime Day to roll around either, with conversions peaking roughly a week before site visits on the MNTN platform.

Advertisers who kept their Connected TV advertising campaigns live well in advance of major shopping events were set up to make the most of this moment, as we also saw a lift in impressions (37% increase) and revenue (74% increase) over this same time period.

Repetition Breeds Familiarity — Particularly in the Case of Prime Day

MNTN Performance TV data told a similar story. We compared the performance of CTV campaigns live during the July and October’s Prime Day events:

It’s important to note that the 12% lift in AOV and 44% lift in total conversions demonstrates that even despite macroeconomic factors like geopolitical tension, tariffs, etc., shoppers are still spending  — except now with heightened price sensitivity, making them eagle-eyed on discounts and deals more than ever. “While consumer spending to date has demonstrated resilience, final retail holiday results will be greatly influenced by the timing of everything from promotions to the news of the day,” explains Cohen.

Advertisers like Amazon have solidified their place on the holiday promotional calendar, and CTV advertisers can capitalize on the ripple event of Prime Days. Prioritizing creative strategy, whether it’s honing in on messaging and creative sequencing with new offers, or refreshed visuals to combat performance decay, is key to coming up on top during Q4 and beyond. 

Reshaping the Retail Landscape at Scale

Amazon Prime Day has made a permanent stamp on the Q4 shopping calendar by evening out consumer spending across the quarter. MarketMinute, a market news and critical analysis platform anticipates that “this could lead to less pressure on last-mile delivery services and a more consistent revenue stream for retailers…[but] that the “peak” of the holiday season might be less pronounced, requires continuous innovation in promotional strategies.” This predicates an always-on, dynamic approach for advertisers to pivot their strategies at a moment’s notice — and have their campaigns ready to go by the end of Q3. Thankfully, Connected TV platforms like MNTN which are built on performance make it easy to react to consumer sentiment and quickly pivot their advertising strategies, whether that’s readjusting commercial storyboard sequencing, swapping out messaging and CTA’s, and identifying high-intent audiences that are ready to spend.