Want to get the most out of Amazon DSP? Here are some tips to help boost your ad creative.

Brands looking to reach new audiences can use the Amazon demand-side platform (DSP) to automate their ad buys everywhere customers spend their time and measure campaign performance. But it can sometimes be challenging to decide what the best ad creatives are to help inform customers about products. That’s why we looked at effective static and video ad campaigns to determine these best practices for ad creative on Amazon DSP.

Start with your campaign objective

The first step is to ensure that you understand your business objective. Every part of the funnel needs a different approach, so make sure your brand and campaign objectives are clear before beginning.

Awareness

Awareness

Focus on educational content that illustrates product benefits, including videos and static images.

Consideration

Consideration

Use strong call to actions (CTAs) and focus on a single product benefit or competitive value.

Purchase

Purchase

Focus on offers and promotions, use auto-generated Dynamic eCommerce Ads (DEA) or Responsive eCommerce Creatives (REC), and promote savings

Best practices for static creative

For static creative in ad campaigns, focus on clarity and getting your brand messaging across as clearly as possible. Here are several recommendations for helping ad creative appeal to audiences.

  • The brand logo should be visible to identify your brand and encourage brand recall and affinity.
  • Have clear product imagery, either product focused or lifestyle. It is best to keep the product as identifiable as possible.
  • Copy should be simple and concise, focusing on the unique features of the product.
  • CTAs are key for conversion and should be aligned to the campaign objective.
  • Headlines should communicate a strong statement that provokes an action.

Static creative insights1

  • For grocery marketing, ad creative that offered a discount increased DPVR by 47% and PR by 55%.
  • For computer marketing ads, creative without pronouns that directly address audiences had an increase in DPVR of 21% and an increase in PR of 29%.
  • For beverage advertising, creative that excluded the word "taste" saw an increase in PR by 68%.

Visit Amazon DSP Help Center for more audience-specific static image insights and additional audience categories (available for creatives running in the US).

Best practices for video creative

There are several ways brands can optimize video creative. These recommendations can help convey your brand messaging and increase awareness.

  • Introduce your brand early on in the creative, especially if you’re including speech. Delaying speech in an ad by one second decreased DPVR by 22%.2
  • Consider having a logo on the creative throughout the commercial to trigger recognition and create relevance.
  • Remember that the initial CTA the viewer sees is important for advertisers to consider, as it presents an opportunity to get ahead of consumer interests.
  • Create emotional relevance and creative engagement can help boost success in advertising.

Key video insights3

  • Videos with durations between 24 and 29 seconds had a DPVR that was 181% higher than creatives that were 6 seconds or less.
  • Adding speech to video ads saw an increase in DPVR by 37%.
  • The peak speech time was in 80-90% of the overall ad, with PR 24% higher than videos with a speech time of 10% or less.

For more Amazon DSP online video insights visit Amazon DSP Help Center (available for creatives running in the US).

Best practices for campaign destinations

Product detail pages

Product detail pages contain basic elements that highlight the product benefit to the customer. Here are recommendations for ad creative for these detail pages.

  • Consider keeping product title short and focus on the specific attributes like the brand, product type, and name
  • Reviews can help build trust with your customers. Before starting an advertising campaign, consider aiming to have a 3.5-star rating with at least 15 positive reviews.
  • Product description bullet points can work best as short sentences that explain the specifications of the product.

Landing pages

Landing page destinations tell the customer the action they are expected to take. It is important to tailor landing pages to the objective of a campaign with features such as these.

  • Stores with image, text, or video
  • A recommended product widget for Stores featuring multiple products
  • Stores with an “Add to cart” CTA or deals widget
  • Store with Subscribe & Save or Refills
  • Product detail pages with videos and lifestyle images
  • Product detail pages with positive customer reviews
  • Product detail pages for a single product that includes the product benefits and characteristics, and comparisons between versions of products
  • An offsite page with educational content and promos
  • An offsite page with CTAs, value proposition, lead generation, and action items

Specs and ad policy best practices

For ad policy creative, there are ways brands could improve the experience of their customers.
Take note of the following elements for optimizing ad creative.

Ad specs and policy requirements

  • On a 970x250 Billboard ad unit, the CTA is mandatory, but a button-shaped CTA is not supported for onsite placements.
  • For 1242x375 creative, there must be a 960x375px safe zone to ensure mobile compatibility.
  • Advertisers must use the Amazon logo for offsite placements as it is best practice to communicate the product is available on Amazon. The logo is only permitted offsite and cannot be used in a sentence or altered in any way.
  • Prime Day branding is not permitted in creatives.

Policy best practices

  • Creatives, including images and fonts, should have high resolution.
  • If creatives have a light or white background, add a one-pixel border.
  • Add a CTA for desktop creatives.
  • Avoid pressuring language that creates a sense of urgency (i.e. “Hurry!”).

Top rejection reasons

Amazon has specific policies for ad creative rejections. Here are some common examples of creative policy rejections to avoid and common ad spec policy misses.

  • Landing page content does not match ad content
  • Unapproved creative content
  • Missing or ambiguous CTA
  • No creative border
  • Custom image violates policy
  • Landing page not functional
  • Poor image or video quality
  • Reviews do not comply with Amazon’s policies
  • Animation more than 15 seconds
  • Ad text or disclaimer not legible

Check out Amazon DSP help center for all available Amazon DSP creative insights, and visit the specs and policy pages for more details on these topics.

1-3 Amazon Internal, July 2021, US