Sponsored Products boosted holiday sales for Amazon sellers

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

How did ads convert?

Over the holiday season, the percentage of US shoppers who clicked on a Sponsored Products ad and then purchased the advertised product on Amazon (conversion rate) increased as the season progressed. Compared to pre-holidays, Black Friday’s ad conversion rate was 16% higher, Cyber Monday was 27% higher, and mid-December reached a 42% higher ad conversion rate, on average.1


But what about revenue?

Higher conversion rates are great, but only if those conversions deliver the right amount of revenue for the cost. So we looked at the average return on ad spend (ROAS) during the holidays as well.

Overall, we found that ROAS was best on Cyber Monday, with an average $13 generated in sales revenue for every dollar a seller spent on Sponsored Products ads. We broke down the ROAS by product category, and we found that all categories saw an improvement over the holidays; however, the peak ROAS varied in both amount and timing for each category. For example, console video games reached their peak in mid-December, whereas apparel and home décor reached their peaks on Cyber Monday.

These metrics are only for sales on Amazon.com resulting from ad clicks, and do not take into account any off-line sales that may be influenced by online behavior.

Average ROAS
(Sales revenue on Amazon.com for every $1 spent on Sponsored Products ads)


Is your advertising strategy ready for the holidays? If not, you can learn more about advertising on Amazon or check out our guide to holiday ads. You can also sign up to be a seller if you are not selling on Amazon.





1 Source: Study conducted by Amazon. (Average across all Amazon Seller Central accounts with at least $0.05 in ad spend on the following dates: Pre-holidays: 10/12/2015; Black Friday: 11/27/2015; Cyber Monday: 11/30/2015; Mid-December: 12/7/2015).