Prime Big Deal Days 2026: the last-week Amazon ads playbook

What should Amazon advertisers do in the last week before Prime Big Deal Days 2026?

The long-lead work is closed: US Lightning Deal and Best Deal submissions and the recommended FBA inbound dates have passed. What is left is advertising work, and most of it is about caps and timing rather than bigger budgets. In the final days, create any Prime Exclusive Discounts or coupons, cut wasted spend, and schedule budget increases on proven campaigns. During the 48 hours, check for capped campaigns before each deal drop. Afterwards, revert the changes and retarget event shoppers.

Last updated: September 30, 2026

Published by Marketplace Ad Pros. The benchmark figures below come from our own customer base and are aggregate and scale-free: medians, rates, and shares of brands, with no individual advertiser's data and no totals summed across brands.

Prime Big Deal Days (the event most sellers call October Prime Day) runs October 6-7, 2026. If you are reading this in the last week, most prep guides no longer apply to you: they start eight weeks out, with inventory and deal submissions. This one starts where you are now.

Key facts

Amazon runs the event on Pacific time. Amazon Ads budget rules run in your ad profile's time zone, which for most US profiles is also Pacific. If you think in Eastern time, convert before you schedule anything.

What's already too late, and what isn't

Don't use the last week for big experiments. Swapping the title on a proven listing, or launching a new campaign structure for your best products, adds risk in exactly the window where you can't afford it.

What our June Prime Day 2026 data says

We measured Prime Day 2026 (June 23-26) across several hundred US advertisers. The figures below are per-advertiser medians, compared per day against matched weekdays before the pre-event ramp. Sponsored Products unless noted. They are correlational, and ad sales were measured at about 95% attribution maturity.

• Spend rose without budget increases. 75% of brands spent more on Sponsored Products, but only 13.7% raised daily budget by 20% or more, and 51% cut it. Event demand filled the budgets brands already had.
• Raising budget didn't show a better result. Brands that raised budget 20%+ had the same median ad-sales lift (1.30x) as brands that held it (1.30x).
• CPCs rose about 10%, from $1.19 to $1.31. Median ACOS went from 33% to 35%.
• Measure total sales, not only ACOS. Among brands with Seller Central connected, median total sales rose 37%. That's a different, smaller subset from the Sponsored Products cohort, so don't read it as a precise halo figure. It does show that judging the event on ACOS alone misses most of what happened.
• Sponsored Display was the exception. The median advertiser cut SD spend 17%, and SD ACOS improved as they did. Whether that's right for you is a decision, not a default.

How far this transfers. June was a four-day event; October is two. Third-party reports on the October 2025 event also disagree on CPCs. Skai reported CPC roughly stable, and CommerceIQ reported CPC up 28%. Plan around a modest auction premium and check your own numbers on the first morning.

The practical reading: raise the ceiling on proven campaigns so a cap never cuts off a good hour, but don't inflate the whole plan.

The day-by-day playbook

Times are Pacific first, Eastern in brackets.

Wednesday, Sep 30 - Friday, Oct 2: clean up and create promotions

• Create Prime Exclusive Discounts and coupons for the products you plan to push. Friday is our recommended last day, not an official cutoff.
• Check stock on every advertised product. If an ASIN will sell out on day one, plan to pull its ads when it gets low, rather than paying event CPCs to send shoppers to an out-of-stock page.
• Fix suppressed or broken listings on your hero products. Leave proven titles alone.
• Submit any new Sponsored Brands or Sponsored Display creative now, so moderation isn't a factor.
• Cut obvious waste. Search terms with 20 or more clicks and zero orders over the last 30 days become negative exact. See the wasted ad spend audit.
• If you want hourly budget data during the event, subscribe to Amazon Marketing Stream now. It only collects from the day you turn it on, so turning it on Tuesday morning is too late.
• Don't forget Black Friday / Cyber Monday. Its deal submissions are reported to close October 20, before your October results will be settled.

Saturday, Oct 3 - Monday, Oct 5: stage the budget changes

• Decide which campaigns are "proven". That means at or under your target ACOS over the last 30 days, with a meaningful number of orders (not two), and products with enough stock to sell through the event. Write the campaign IDs down.
• Create scheduled budget rules for Oct 6-7 on those campaigns only. Treat the increase as headroom for demand, not as a spend target. Amazon's own special-event budget suggestions are a reasonable starting point for the size of the increase.
• Lift bids or top-of-search placement only on terms you're defending or ranking for. Leave the rest of the account alone.
• Build retargeting audiences (Sponsored Display or DSP) now, so they're ready to switch on the day after.
• Monday evening: confirm the rules are enabled, your promotions show on the detail pages, and the date range is in the right time zone.

Tuesday, Oct 6 (day 1)

• 12:00 a.m. PT (3:00 a.m. ET): the event starts. Your budget changes should already be live.
• Around 7:30 a.m. PT (10:30 a.m. ET), before the 8:00 a.m. deal drop: check which proven campaigns are out of budget or close to it. Move budget to them from campaigns that are underspending.
• Around 12:30 p.m. PT (3:30 p.m. ET), before the 1:00 p.m. deal drop: repeat.
• Don't cut on a morning ACOS read. Same-day ad sales keep attributing for days. A campaign that looks expensive at 9 a.m. usually looks better by the evening, and better still a week later.
• Watch total sales, not just the ad console. The ad console lags on event days.
• Watch stock. Pull ads from anything about to sell out.

Wednesday, Oct 7 (day 2)

• Same routine, with the same checks before the deal drops.
• Keep budget for the evening. Last-day shoppers finish their carts late. Don't let proven campaigns cap out before 11:59 p.m. PT (2:59 a.m. ET).

Thursday, Oct 8 - Friday, Oct 9: revert and retarget

• Confirm the scheduled rules ended. Restore any manual bid and placement changes by hand, because nothing reverts those automatically.
• Turn on retargeting for shoppers who viewed but didn't buy.
• Move new converting search terms into exact-match campaigns. Treat new negatives as provisional: event sales keep attributing for up to 14 days.

Around Oct 21: measure it

Once attribution has settled, compare Oct 6-7 per day against matched weekdays two weeks earlier, by ad type. Include total sales and TACoS, not just ACOS. That comparison is what should shape your Black Friday / Cyber Monday plan.

Doing it with your AI assistant

Most of this is checking the same few things repeatedly under time pressure. That's the kind of work an AI assistant connected to your ad data does well. With Marketplace Ad Pros connected to Claude or ChatGPT, these are the questions to ask. Each maps to a tool the connector actually has:

1. "Which of my Sponsored Products campaigns have Amazon special-event budget recommendations for Prime Big Deal Days, and what increase does Amazon suggest?" Amazon's own suggestions, per campaign.
2. "List campaigns at or under 30% ACOS over the last 30 days with at least 10 orders. Propose a scheduled budget rule for October 6-7 on them, and show me the list before creating anything." The assistant drafts the rule, and you approve it before it's created. With Seller Central connected, ask it to drop any campaign whose products are low on stock.
3. "Which search terms have 20 or more clicks and zero orders in the last 30 days?" That's the waste sweep.
4. "Which campaigns have crossed 80% or 100% of their budget in the last hour?" This needs Amazon Marketing Stream enabled on the ad account before the event, which is why it's on this week's list. See the Marketing Stream playbook.
5. "Compare my October 6-7 per-day results to matched weekdays two weeks earlier, by ad type, including total sales and TACoS." Ask this after the event.

The holiday events skill packages the whole prep, run, and measure cycle for Claude. If you'd rather make the changes in bulk, read how to make bulk Amazon Ads changes safely first. Two days before a sales event is a bad time to discover a bulk edit didn't do what you thought.

Frequently asked questions

When does Prime Big Deal Days 2026 start in Eastern time?

Amazon runs the event on Pacific time: it starts at 12:00 a.m. PT on Tuesday, October 6, 2026 and ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on Wednesday, October 7. On the East Coast that is 3:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, October 6 through 2:59 a.m. ET on Thursday, October 8. Any budget increase you want live for the first hours has to be in place before 3:00 a.m. ET, which in practice means setting it up the day before.

Is it too late to submit a Prime Big Deal Days deal?

For US Lightning Deals and Best Deals, yes. Submissions closed on September 22 after Amazon extended the original September 8 deadline, and the recommended FBA inbound dates passed in mid-September. Prime Exclusive Discounts and coupons are shorter-lead promotions and can still be created, but sources disagree on how long approval takes, so treat Friday, October 2 as the practical last day rather than counting on a same-week submission.

Should I raise my Amazon ad budget for October Prime Day?

Raise the ceiling on proven campaigns, not the whole plan. In our June Prime Day 2026 study of several hundred US advertisers, 75% spent more on Sponsored Products but only 13.7% raised daily budget by 20% or more, and brands that raised budget saw the same median ad-sales lift (1.30x) as brands that held it. That is correlational, not causal, but it suggests event demand fills existing budgets. The job is making sure a budget cap never cuts off a campaign that is converting at your target, which a scheduled budget rule on those campaigns does without inflating everything else.

How much will Amazon CPCs go up during Prime Big Deal Days?

Expect a modest premium, not a doubling. In our June Prime Day 2026 cohort the median Sponsored Products CPC rose about 10%, from $1.19 to $1.31. Third-party reports on the October 2025 event disagree: Skai reported CPC roughly stable while CommerceIQ reported CPC up 28%. Plan efficiency targets around a 10-30% premium on your most contested terms and check your own CPC by the end of the first morning.

When should I turn my Amazon ad budgets back down after the event?

On Thursday, October 8. Scheduled budget rules end on their own at the end of their date range, but check that they did, and restore any manual bid or placement changes by hand, since nothing reverts those automatically. Keep retargeting of event shoppers running into the following week. Treat search-term negatives as provisional until about October 21, because ad sales from the event keep attributing for up to 14 days.

Is Prime Big Deal Days the same as October Prime Day?

Yes. Prime Big Deal Days is Amazon's official name for the October event that most sellers and shoppers call October Prime Day. It is separate from Prime Day itself, which ran June 23-26, 2026. The October event is shorter, at 48 hours, and runs in 22 countries, though Amazon notes that dates may vary by country.

Related guides

• Amazon Prime Day 2026 ad benchmarks
• How to find wasted ad spend on Amazon: a 5-check audit
• How to calculate TACoS on Amazon
• How to make bulk Amazon Ads changes safely
• Amazon Marketing Stream playbook

Want to run these checks against your own account instead of a checklist? Connect Amazon Ads and Seller Central and ask Claude or ChatGPT directly -- free integration.