Guide
How to get started with Sponsored Brands video ads
Imagine showing customers short, informative videos that highlight your products and brand while they search on Amazon. Learn how to use Sponsored Brands video ads to help capture shoppers’ attention and stand out in search results.
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Sponsored Brands is an advertising solution built to help customers discover your brand within the Amazon store.
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What are Sponsored Brands video ads, and how can they benefit your business?
Sponsored Brands video ads are designed to help more shoppers discover the benefits of your brand and products. The ads are displayed at the top-of-search and alongside search results or relevant product detail pages on Amazon (pages consumers land on after clicking on a product in search results). We recommend using your Brand Store as the landing page for your video ads, but with some Sponsored Brands campaign goals you can also link to a product detail page.
Sponsored Brands supports videos in both vertical (9:16) or horizontal (16:9) format. Horizontal content allows for cinematic narratives and compositions, in addition to multi-platform compatibility. Vertical video allows for increased authenticity (user-generated or creator-based stories), provides an organic feel tailored for mobile shopping, and ensures you can repurpose content you may have for other marketing purposes.
91% of consumers say they want to see more online videos from brands.1
89% say watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service.2
Customers are 95% more likely to remember a brand message conveyed from video, compared to written content.3
- Increased visibility with high-intent shoppers.
- Improved brand awareness and recall.
- Increased traffic to your brand or product pages.
- Measure your brand-building efforts.
Show up in search results and on product pages, reaching more of your ideal customers, through keyword and product targeting, using engaging video content.
Help more shoppers discover your products, and remember your brand with autoplay video.
Nudge shoppers to your digital “doorstep” by linking your video ad to your Brand Store or product detail page.
Learn how consumers engage with your ads, and glean insights to optimize your marketing tactics.
Where can Sponsored Brands video ads appear?
Your video ad can appear on Amazon search results pages at the top-of-search and within search listings and on product detail pages. When shoppers click on your ad, you can choose to direct them to your Brand Store or a product detail page, depending on your campaign goals. Keep in mind that some goals you select when building Sponsored Brands ads will only allow you to use your Brand Store as a landing page:
- Linking to your Brand Store: This type of campaign is an effective way to build rapport with shoppers, and influence purchasing decisions. Your video ad can be featured both above and below the fold of search results.
- Linking to your product detail page: This type of campaign is best for connecting shoppers with your product. Your video ad will appear in shopping results and on product pages.
New-to-brand shoppers who visit a Store are 25.6% more likely to purchase compared to those who do not visit a Store 4.
Targeting options
Reach shoppers most likely to buy your products by targeting specific keywords or recent product searches. You might try key phrases matching your product description, such as “comfortable walking shoes,” or even brand names that are similar to yours.
You can also apply negative targeting to prevent your video ads from appearing on specific shopping results or detail pages. For instance, if you sell high-end running shoes, you might want to exclude keywords, like “cheap sneakers.” Theme targeting is another option to help you simplify keyword selection, land on top-of-search, and reach more shoppers. Consider these features:
- Using “keywords related to your brand” will help you find all relevant branded browse terms, allowing shoppers to see your brand when they browse for it. This will help build brand loyalty and prevent losing sales.
- Using, “keywords related to your landing pages” will help shoppers discover brand Stores from the top-of-search in which shoppers may remember brands and purchase more.
Pricing models
Depending on the campaign goals you select when setting up your ads, your video ads will use either a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) model. CPC refers to the cost of each click your ad receives; vCPM is the cost per 1,000 ad impressions, referring to the number of times the ad is viewed, whether consumers click on it or not.
There is no minimum spend requirement, so you can start and test campaigns with any budget, starting as low as $10.
Getting started with Sponsored Brands video ads
Sponsored Brands video is available to registered sellers on Amazon. If your brand isn’t yet registered, you can enroll now in the Amazon Brand Registry.
Sign into your Amazon Ads account, and choose “Video” to build your Sponsored Brands campaign:
This image shows how to get started with Sponsored Brands video within ad console.
- Build a video in less than 10 minutes through a menu of customizable templates, or get help from Amazon creative services.
- Brand Store landing page: Choose this option to send shoppers to your Store page.
- Product detail page: Choose this option to send shoppers directly to a product detail page.
Next, follow the on-screen instructions to choose your targeting criteria, and set your budget. You’re ready to start your campaign.
No video? No problem. Build a templated video in less than 10 minutes with our self-service video builder.
For additional details on guidelines and creative acceptance policies, visit the sponsored ads guidelines and acceptance policies.
Measuring the success of your campaign
Measuring your campaign performance starts with the goal you select for each campaign. Keeping a close eye on performance helps you make confident decisions about your marketing spend and future campaign optimizations. Just as important, testing the impact of various campaign elements (such as, messaging, product shots, targeting, and more) helps you identify what works best for your goals.
If your goal is to increase awareness of your brand or products, impressions and top-of-search impression share are good indicators of how many shoppers viewed your ad, or specifically viewed at in the most prominent placements. If your objective is driving consideration, click-through rates suggest your ad piqued shoppers’ interest, and drove them to learn more. If sales conversions is your main objective, you’ll want to watch your new-to-brand metrics, advertising cost of sales, return on advertising spend, and 14-day attributed sales to see how your ads are helping you acquire new customers (sales attributed to your video ad within 14 days of a shopper interacting with it).
For video ads specifically, measuring the performance of your creative is key to long term success. Our suite of video view metrics allows you to track how much of your video a shopper watched and if they tried to listen to the audio—a good sign of shopper interest.
You’ll find three types of reports in your advertising console:
- Campaign reports help you monitor the impact of bid, keyword, and creative optimizations.
- Keyword reports capture the performance of individual keywords in your campaigns.
- Search term reports provide visibility into shopping queries entered by shoppers that resulted in a click on your ad.
You can schedule reports to be sent directly to your email inbox at a desired frequency, in the “Reporting settings” section.
Optimizing your Sponsored Brands video ads
A few tweaks and considerations can go a long way to optimizing your video ad performance:
Define your goal and audience
If your campaign objective is awareness, we recommend creating content that helps foster an emotional connection with customers. A video testimonial showing why and how a customer uses your product is one way to foster that connection. Similarly, a story about how your product transformed someone’s routine or results can help shoppers envision themselves enjoying a similar experience.
If your objective is consideration or purchase, we recommend focusing on unique differentiators and benefits, like a product demonstration. Consider highlighting features that can save consumers time, money, or effort, like a hairstyling tool that can cut styling time in half, or a durable material that’s designed for high usage.
Convey the transformation your product can deliver
Painting a clear before-and-after picture can be convincing. Make sure to focus on the problem you’re solving for customers.
Aim for 15-30 seconds
The optimal video length for a lasting effect is between 15 and 30 seconds. We recommend showing the product in the first two seconds, and including the product function in the first five seconds. Be mindful of mobile viewers, ensuring product shots aren’t too small for a smartphone screen. Remember that the goal of the video is not to provide all the details about the product, but rather to create a sense of excitement and curiosity
Include a logo and call to action
Have your logo at the beginning or end of your video to remind customers who you are. Encourage viewers to take action with a short, clear, and precise CTA (call to action), like, “Learn more” or “See details.”
Use closed captions
Customers may watch your ad without sound, particularly if they’re on the go or in a crowded setting. For that reason, Sponsored Brands video ads autoplay, and launch on mute. We recommend closed captions to ensure your videos are easily understood and still engaging without sound.
Amplify your results by stacking your advertising tactics
Consider these complementary ad solutions to create a more cohesive strategy:
- Brand Follow: Foster long-term connections by enabling shoppers to follow your Brand Store with just one click.
- Posts: Use inspiring lifestyle images and videos to help boost product discovery, and reach shoppers at no cost in organic shopping feeds.
- Brand Stores: Showcase your brand and products in a multipage, immersive shopping experience.
Ready to start?
If you’re new to Amazon Ads, register here. Under ‘Sponsored ads,’ select ‘United States’ as the country. If you’re already registered, sign in to the ad console to get started.
Already a registered advertiser? Sign in.
1-2 Wyzowl, The State of Video Marketing, US, 2023.
3 Enterprise Apps Today, Video Marketing Statistics, 2023.
4 Amazon internal data, US, 2022.