I’ve been telling retailers for a long time that if you’re not selling on Amazon, you might as well not be selling at all.
When 56% of consumers start their product searches on Amazon, carving out your space in the world’s biggest e-commerce market requires a robust, comprehensive approach to both paid and organic marketing that uses all the space and resources you have at your disposal.
In this guide, we’ll take an in-depth look at how you can make your brand as competitive as possible with one of the most valuable, yet most misunderstood branches of Amazon marketing: Amazon DSP Advertising.
The Amazon demand-side platform (DSP) is a tool designed to help brands on Amazon to buy display and video ads at scale for spaces both on and off Amazon.
It differs from the standard Amazon advertising platform in the fact that it focuses on programmatic advertising that automates your media buying, using engagement signals from a vast bank of data to ensure your ads are served to the right audience, in the right space, at the right time.
This empowers you and your advertising team to automate away a large part of the decision-making that comes with managing ads, and spend less time having to negotiate placements and prices as you would with more typical display ad platforms.
Aside from this, using Amazon DSP will give you access to Amazon-exclusive datasets and audience insights to align your advertising strategy with the audience segments you’re targeting, ensuring that your ads are getting in front of the audiences who are most likely to return a high ROI.
All told, investing in Amazon DSP ads will maximise your chances of generating a consistently healthy ROAS as you grow your brand on Amazon, while reducing the time spent manually checking the state of your campaigns and adjusting your targeting based on past performance.
There are two ways that your brand can access Amazon DSP advertising: self-service and managed.
Self-service puts you in full control of the advertising campaigns you run through the platform, and has no minimum ad spend stated by Amazon.
Managed-service comes with a consultation service provided by Amazon, and is designed for businesses that have limited experience when it comes to programmatic advertising. As this option requires Amazon to put up part of the resources, accessing managed-service DSP requires you to meet a minimum monthly ad spend, currently set at USD $50,000 (note that this varies from country to country, and you’ll need to check if you meet the relevant minimum requirements with your Amazon account executive).
When you’re up and running with Amazon DSP, the platform will use its algorithm to begin targeting and retargeting Amazon shoppers who are most likely to purchase a particular product, based on customer engagement signals.
If, for example, an Amazon user views your product detail page for a certain amount of time, the algorithm will log this as a sign of interest and show this user ads for the same product in the future.
This is just one of the dimensions that Amazon DSP uses as part of its programmatic advertising.
Overall, the algorithm draws on six different types of engagement signal to help put your products in front of the right people:
Behavioural, which uses data relating to Amazon users’ searches, clicks, and other browsing habits that signify their interest in your products.
Contextual, which segments your audience based on the kinds of searches they make on Amazon.
Lifestyle, which targets users based on search and purchase behaviours that reflect a certain lifestyle as defined by Amazon’s audience data.
Re-marketing, which specifically works to re-engage shoppers who have already searched for, viewed, and purchased your products or those that are similar to yours.
Advertiser audiences, which draws on independent advertising data you share with Amazon, such as email lists or display campaigns and web pages where you’ve implemented a tracking pixel.
Lookalike audiences, which targets users who have displayed shopping behaviours that are similar to your past or current customers.
Once you’re set up with Amazon DSP ads, you’ll gain access to a whole range of tools that will allow you to organise your marketing assets and customise the way your paid ads are shown to your audience.
More broadly, Amazon DSP ads can be categorised into three main categories:
Amazon display ads, which are the standard banner ads your audience will see when they’re browsing websites, social media, and other online spaces. These ads encourage your audience to click-through to your Amazon PDP, or another landing page if you’re using Amazon DSP to market something sold through your own channels.
Amazon video ads, which are displayed on Amazon itself, Amazon devices, websites owned by Amazon, and on Amazon video content like Prime Video.
Amazon audio ads, which are played via the free version of Amazon Music, as well as on Alexa-enabled devices like Fire TV and Amazon Echo.
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Moving some or all of your Amazon advertising over to DSP has a range of benefits in terms of reach, audience targeting, and performance insights to help inform your future Amazon marketing drives.
Here’s a closer look at some of the key benefits of Amazon DSP and what they can mean for your campaign.
Large-scale reach. One of the biggest benefits that first attracts brands to the Amazon DSP platform is the extended audience reach it offers. Compared to the standard Amazon Sponsored Ads platform, which is limited to space on Amazon-owned sites, your ads will appear on a wide range of third-party sites which Amazon maintains advertising agreements with through its partner network.
When combined with Amazon’s first-party data and sophisticated targeting algorithm, you’ll not only be able to enjoy greater overall impressions on your ads, but ensure that you’re putting your products in front of people in the online spaces where they’re most likely to click through and convert.
Advanced targeting. Amazon has been at the forefront of utilising big data for better audience targeting for some time, so it should come as no surprise that Amazon DSP’s advanced targeting capabilities are another key benefit that drives vendors to adopt it. Benefiting from Amazon’s wealth of first-party data, advertisers are able to supercharge their conversion rate with less manual work thanks to sophisticated, programmatic targeting.
Using its six distinct targeting factors: behavioural, contextual, lifestyle, re-marketing, advertiser and lookalike audiences, ads you run through Amazon DSP are are going to give you consistently effective targeting, ensuring that your ads will always be shown to the most relevant people in the most relevant spaces possible.
Omnichannel brand awareness. As a retailer, you’ll know that successfully bringing a shopper through the stages of the customer journey means keeping your brand at the forefront of their mind across multiple different touchpoints. When they come to make a purchase decision, this will ensure your product feels like the natural first choice.
As part of Amazon DSP’s increased reach, you’ll be better-equipped to ensure your products are popping up at all the right touchpoints, maintaining a consistent brand identity no matter the specific ad format, and nurturing a positive relationship across all audience segments.
Comprehensive analytics and reporting. When you join the Amazon DSP program, you’ll gain access to a dashboard with a range of data points showing you a comprehensive view of both your campaign performance and your customers’ purchasing behaviour.
Aside from the standard Sponsored Ads metrics like impressions, click-through rate, and conversions, Amazon DSP allows you to drill down your data to “New to Brand” customers. This shows you the people who are interacting with your brand for the first time and the stages that have brought them from the first ad impression through to a conversion.
Whether you’re just getting started on Amazon or you’re looking to review your approach to a long-running ads strategy, it’s important to understand the core differences separating sponsored ads and Amazon DSP, and how these might make one route or the other better-suited to your needs.
Here’s a comparison chart showing the key variables and how sponsored ads differ from Amazon DSP.
| Amazon sponsored ads | Amazon DSP | |
| Product eligibility | Traffic always directs to an Amazon PDP. | Can be directed to both Amazon PDPs and your own DTC pages. |
| Cost structure | PPC (pay-per-click, you pay for each click earned on your ads). | CPM (cost per mille, you pay for every 1,000 impressions on your ads.) |
| Minimum investment | $1 per day. | Minimum monthly ad spend: $10,000 for self-service, $50,000 for managed service. |
| Creative / brand control | Automatically-generated from template. Control over the brand logo and headline copy only. | Full control over your ads and the option to use Amazon creative templates. |
| Audience targeting | Targeting Amazon users based on their interests, shopping behaviour, and interactions with specific products and categories. | Highly granular targeting covering demographics, lifestyle, remarketing, purchase intent, lookalike audiences, and others. |
| Brand protection | No brand protection features. | Purpose-built brand protection tools allowing you to monitor your real-time bids, display site reviews, viewability, traffic quality, and other variables. |
| Learning curve | Simple learning curve through Amazon Advertising Console. | Steeper learning curve. Requires more configuration and understanding to launch and manage successful campaigns. |
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Now that you’ve got an understanding of what Amazon DSP is and how it can benefit your business, you can start taking practical steps to launch a campaign and start reaping some of its key advantages.
Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to use Amazon DSP.
Like with any kind of advertising campaign, starting out with clear goals is a crucial first step in using Amazon DSP effectively.
Amazon DSP can be used either to target a specific area of your funnel, or several different phases at once.
As certain kinds of ad creative and end products are better-suited to some parts of the sales funnel than others, knowing what you’re setting out to achieve and aligning these variables appropriately is important to set yourself up for future success.
Here’s a basic overview of some of the goals you might use to guide your campaign, and some of the adjustments you may want to make based on what you’re setting out to achieve.
Brand awareness stage. This top-of-funnel stage is where you’re introducing new people to your products and brand, planting an initial seed that will help you stay top-of-mind throughout the customer journey.
At this stage, you may want to focus on short, punchy ad copy and memorable taglines, and advertising your most recognisable flagship products using high-quality, impactful visual assets.
Consideration stage. Campaigns focusing on this stage are all about addressing your audience’s key pain points, highlighting a stand-out feature of your product, or answering a common question that consumers might have about how your product meets their needs.
Here, you may want to lean on slightly more detailed and persuasive copy that addresses your customer’s pain points or questions, use visuals to demonstrate features and benefits in a more compelling way, and segment your audience further to decide on a more fitting product.
Conversion stage. In the final stage, you’re drawing members of your audience over the line into a sale. This is where you differentiate yourself further from the competition, address any last niggling doubts, and encourage a final decision.
For campaigns focusing on this stage, you may want to implement copy and visuals that have a strong call to action, highlight limited-time discounts or offers, and create a sense of urgency or scarcity to further encourage action. You may want to shift your product focus towards more high-margin items in order to maximise revenue, or bundles and promotional discounts that will encourage your customers to purchase a higher volume.
Once you’ve established the goals and funnel stages your campaign is going to focus on, you can begin the practical work of setting up your campaign.
Here’s a closer look at how to approach your choice of DSP service, order setup, budget, and more.
Managed or self-service?
Due to the higher minimum ad spend on Amazon DSP managed service, this may not be accessible to everyone. If you do have the choice though, it’s important to consider which one of these options will be better-suited for you.
With the managed service option, you’ll have a dedicated executive at Amazon managing your campaign strategy, optimisation, and execution.
This tends to be the better route for advertisers who don’t have the time or knowledge to develop their own programmatic strategy from scratch, or who are looking for a more hands-off approach that doesn’t require any manual monitoring or tweaking.
The self-service option, on the other hand, will require you to set up and manage your own campaigns. This will obviously require more time and resource from your end than going with a managed service. However, some advertisers will prefer having more granular control over their advertising, and the assurance that there’s no risk of their Amazon contact misinterpreting their goals or mismanaging their campaign.
Amazon DSP views
The Amazon DSP console is made up of several different views, going from a general overview of your advertising activities to highly granular filters.
Starting on the Campaign Manager page, you can see which level of view you’re on in the top-left hand side of the page.
The hierarchy of views, from most general to most granular, is as follows:
Entity Level: All the advertisers contained within your entity.
Advertiser Level: All the orders attached to a specific advertiser.
Order level: All the line items (ad groups) for a specific order.
Line item level: All the creatives for a specific line item.
Creative level: Details on the creative for a specific line item.
Setting up orders
Once you’ve set up your account in the Amazon DSP console, the next step towards launching a campaign will be to create an order. Note that orders can’t be deleted once they’re created, so it’s important to plan it out carefully before you proceed.
When setting up an order, refer back to the goals you’re hoping to achieve, and select the KPIs you’re going to measure to track your success. For example:
Reach to measure an awareness campaign.
CTR or CPC to measure a consideration campaign.
ROAS to measure conversion.
At this stage, it’s also very important to set a single, consistent naming convention for all your orders. This will make it easier to quickly glance at the orders you see in a given advertiser view, and identify the key variables for easier navigation.
One common naming convention is: [Product]_[Targeting]_[KPI]_[Funnel Stage]
When in use, this might look like: SelectionBox_Lookalike_CPC_Consideration
Setting up line items
With an order created, the next step is to set up line items, which will dictate the kinds of inventory types (the channel where you choose to display your ads), devices, supply sources, and targeting methods that will govern your ad delivery.
Here’s a breakdown of the fields you’ll need to set for your line items:
Type: The kind of creative you’ll use for your ads, e.g video or display.
Name: The name of your line item. For easier organisation, this should follow a similar naming convention to your orders, containing the relevant product, your targeting method, and inventory type.
Category: The product category that aligns best with your product.
Inventory: The channel where your ads will be displayed, e.g Amazon owned & operated mobile, Amazon publisher services, or Third-Party exchanges.
Setting targeting types
Amazon DSP offers a range of different targeting types advertisers can utilise, which align neatly with the different stages of the sales funnel.
Here’s a breakdown of the different stages of the sales funnel and the associated Amazon DSP targeting types.
Top of funnel (brand awareness): In market, lifestyle, and demographic.
Middle of funnel (consideration): Search prospecting, competitor conquesting, and complementary.
Bottom of funnel (conversion): Contextual retargeting, cross-selling, retention, and retargeting.
Selecting creative types
The Amazon DSP platform gives you access to a range of ad creative types, which like your line items, are generally better suited to different stages of the sales funnel.
Video ads are most at home in the top and middle stages of the funnel, where they can drive greater awareness and consideration, whereas more standard display ads see the most effectiveness in the later consideration and conversion stages.
Note that these are general trends rather than concrete rules, and you should select your ad creatives based on your own observations of your audience and performance for the best results possible.
Some of the creative types you can use in your Amazon DSP advertising include:
Streaming TV ads (STV), which play before and during the content on streaming platforms where Amazon has media partnerships. Due to its broad reach, this is a popular option for brands building awareness in the early stages of the funnel.
Online video ads (OLV), Which appear on apps and web browsers before and during more short-form video content. These ads generally sit in the awareness stages of the funnel alongside STV creative.
Responsive ecommerce creative (REC), Which generates ads for a maximum of 20 ASINs per creative, servable via any Amazon DSP inventory source. These are useful for the consideration stage, and Amazon provides granular datasets across various creative sizes so you can clearly see which option is working best.
Custom image creative (Custom Image), custom visual assets which uses your own layout, branded design, and copy in place of the elements scraped from your Amazon PDP. Due to the high level of customisation, this creative type is especially useful for emphasising offers and compelling product features in the conversion stage.
Whether you’re at the start of your Amazon journey or you’ve been selling on the platform for some time, we hope this guide has helped to answer some of your biggest questions about Amazon advertising, and given you a headstart on crafting an ads strategy that’s right for you.
For further support on Amazon DSP and succeeding as a vendor in general, be sure to check out our other blog posts or find out more about our comprehensive Amazon DSP services.