 "Amazon Advertising Platform Outage Causes Disruption During Prime Day Sale")
Amazon.com Inc.’s marketing portal for merchants experienced a significant outage on Tuesday night during one of the company’s largest sales events of the year, Prime Day. This portal serves as a crucial self-service system where sellers and brands manage their advertising budgets and bid on keywords to ensure visibility of their products in response to consumer searches. The outage left many brands unable to effectively monitor and adjust their ad spending on Amazon, impacting their strategies during a critical sales period.
Prime Day, known for its extensive discounts and high consumer traffic, began with a robust start this year, with early sales figures showing a nearly 12% increase compared to the same period last year, as reported by Momentum Commerce, which manages multiple brands across various product categories. For both Amazon and its sellers, Prime Day represents a pivotal opportunity to boost sales and engage with a large customer base.
In response to inquiries, an Amazon spokesperson acknowledged the issue, stating that a small number of advertisers experienced limited access to the Amazon Ads console for a brief period, but reassured that there was no impact on ad delivery and that campaigns continued to run as intended. Despite this assurance, reports from industry experts and consultants indicate widespread disruption among sellers, with many affected parties discussing the outage on platforms like Slack and LinkedIn.
Jed Rawson, from consulting firm Pirawna, which oversees Amazon accounts generating nearly $500 million in sales annually, confirmed that all of his clients were impacted by the portal’s downtime. The disruption reportedly lasted for approximately two hours before Amazon resolved the issue, though the company did not specify the exact duration of the outage.
The incident underscores the critical reliance of merchants on Amazon’s advertising infrastructure during key sales events, highlighting the need for robust contingency plans and reliable operational support to mitigate such disruptions in the future.