We've designed this guide to answer questions you may have about sponsored ads and Stores. How much do they cost? How long does it take to create a campaign? How does advertising help you to increase brand awareness and increase sales on Amazon?
If you'd like to learn about all the products we offer, visit our introduction to Amazon Ads.
Introduction
What are sponsored ads? How do they work?
Sponsored ads target shopping queries or products, and can occupy high-visibility placements on Amazon (for example, on the first shopping results page and on product pages) and anywhere customers spend their time.
Objectives: increase sales, attract traffic to product pages
Sponsored Products ads appear on Amazon and help promote specific products in shopping results and relevant product pages. When a customer clicks an ad, they are directed to the corresponding product page.
Sponsored Products is available to professional sellers and vendors.
Objectives: boost brand awareness, increase sales across the entire catalog
Sponsored Brands ads appear on Amazon and allow you to create ads that include multiple products, along with your brand logo and a custom headline. Shoppers can be directed from your Sponsored Brands ad to a selection of products or to the brand’s Store.
Sponsored Brands is available to vendors and sellers registered in Amazon Brand Registry.
Objectives: quickly create display ads, reach audiences anywhere they spend their time
Sponsored Display ads help you engage audiences who either showed interest in categories related to your promoted product or viewed your your product’s detail page but did not purchase. You can also target specific products or categories that are similar or complementary to your promoted product.
Sponsored Display is available to vendors and sellers registered in Amazon Brand Registry.
Objectives: maximize engagement through a tailor-made brand experience, build customer loyalty
Stores is a free self-service solution that aims to promote a brand and its products in an engaging and interactive way. A Store allows you to showcase your best sellers and seasonal collections, publish videos or tell the story of your brand. The user experience can be customized using automatic widgets.
Stores is available to vendors and sellers registered in Amazon Brand Registry.
Budget
Budget is a big topic for most advertisers. After all, you’re growing a business and want to know you’re spending money wisely. It’s natural to have some questions about how much advertising will cost you.
Here, we help answer those questions by showing you what’s true and false when it comes to advertising budget.
False: There’s no up-front fee to advertise, and no monthly fee either. When you create a sponsored ads campaign, you choose your own budget as well as the amount you want to bid for a click. You’ll only pay when customers click on your ad, and you’ll never be charged more than your bid amount.
False: Sponsored ads are designed to work with your individual budget. You’ll want to choose one that’s high enough to help you reach your goals, but that will vary from advertiser to advertiser. In general, you’ll see results—ad impressions, clicks, and sales—with a budget of just $10 (US) a day.
Our main piece of advice: Never set a budget you’re not comfortable with. You can always start smaller and then invest more as you find what works best for your business.
True: Sponsored ads are designed to fit every budget, and to give you full control over it.
With Sponsored Products and Sponsored Display, you’ll set a daily budget, or the maximum amount you want to spend on advertising per day. With Sponsored Brands, you have the choice to set a daily budget or a campaign-level budget, the maximum amount you’re willing to spend over the course of the campaign.
True: That’s right. You can always change your budget, no matter the reason.
If you set a daily budget, you can increase it or decrease it at any time. Note that you can only increase campaign-level budgets, so if you think there’s a chance you might want to lower your budget before your campaign ends, consider choosing a daily budget for more flexibility.
False: Sponsored ads are cost-per-click, meaning you’re charged only when a customer clicks on your ad.
Getting started
How long does it take to create and launch your first advertising campaign? You might be surprised to hear that you can do it in a matter of minutes.
You might be thinking, “That’s great, but I’ve never created an ad campaign before. It’ll probably take me a lot longer.” Here are some things to know:
• Our ads are designed for everyone, meaning you don’t need to have any advertising experience to build them successfully.
• They’re schedule-friendly—it takes about 5 minutes to create a Sponsored Products campaign, and these ads launch almost instantly.
• You’ll find real-time information within campaign manager, where you’ll create your ads.
“I kept dancing around advertising because it seemed a little daunting. It turns out it was really easy, and I saw results almost immediately: my sales increased in my first 3 months of advertising.”
- Janice, US Amazon seller
“Our main business goal is to drive as much revenue as possible. Sponsored Products is super easy to use, and effective. You can measure how your ad spend is directly correlating with sales.”
- Matthew Clarke, US Amazon advertiser
Save time and simplify campaign management
1) Instead of making changes (like updating keywords) one by one in campaign manager, use the bulk operations feature to download a bulk file, make edits to campaigns, and then upload for processing.
2) Use portfolios to organize your campaigns by brand, category, product, or season–whatever makes the most sense for you and your business. Portfolios also include automatic budget capping and simple invoicing.
3) Want to avoid making manual updates to your Sponsored Products bids? With dynamic bidding, Amazon will automatically adjust your bid based on the likelihood of conversion.
4) Get a clear understanding of your performance, quickly, within campaign manager. Here, you’ll see a single view of your ad campaigns, so you can easily track your total spend, total sales, and more.
Resources
Advertiser tips
Hear how current Amazon advertisers use sponsored ads to help attract more customers, increase sales, and meet their individual goals.
Success with Sponsored Products
6 sellers describe their experiences using Sponsored Products.
Vermont Teddy Bear case study
The New England brand has steadily grown their Amazon business by using sponsored ads and Stores to introduce more shoppers to their unique toy collections.
“Our Store gives our brand a permanent place on Amazon. Linking our Sponsored Brands ad to our Store has been profitable.”
-Jason Baer, VP of Sales and Marketing, Vermont Teddy Bear
Popfunk case study
Popfunk changed the business model for the pop culture licensing industry when it became the first US company to print on-demand apparel—and again when they started selling on Amazon. Learn how sponsored ads, however, helped them see their biggest wins to date.
“In six months, we were able to increase monthly sales on Amazon. By the time we made it to our first holiday sales season, the impact of Amazon Ads on our business goals was clear.”
- Trevor George, President, Popfunk
Ready to get started?
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Learn more about our other advertising products, such as Amazon DSP and video ads, by visiting The basics of success: Beyond sponsored ads.
Still have questions? Visit our frequently asked questions.