TNOMADS / Services / Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising

Amazon PPC — precision
that scales.

Sponsored Products, Brands, Video, and Display — built around your margin, your portfolio, and your growth objectives.

What is Amazon PPC?

Amazon PPC is Amazon's pay-per-click advertising system, covering Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. Advertisers bid on keywords and product targets, pay when a shopper clicks, and their products appear in search results and on detail pages. It is the primary demand-capture channel on Amazon.

Formats: SP, SB, SBV, SDPricing: CPCKey metrics: ACOS, TACoS, NTBAccess: Seller & Vendor Central

What is Amazon PPC?

The engine behind Amazon sales growth.

Amazon PPC (Pay-Per-Click) refers to the family of Sponsored Ads that appear across Amazon search results, product detail pages, and on-site placements. Unlike DSP, which is CPM-based and programmatic, Sponsored Ads are auction-based — you bid on keywords or ASINs and pay only when a shopper clicks.

PPC is the most direct lever for visibility on Amazon. Without a winning bid, your product does not appear — regardless of how good your listing is. But without a disciplined structure, PPC spend inflates quickly with diminishing returns.

Effective Amazon PPC combines campaign architecture, keyword strategy, bid management, negative keyword discipline, and ASIN-level analysis — all informed by search term data that reveals exactly what shoppers are typing.

SP

Sponsored Products

The highest-volume, most direct-response format. Appears in search results and PDPs. Drives the majority of sales for most Amazon advertisers. Keyword and product targeting available.

SB

Sponsored Brands

Header banner placements featuring your brand logo and up to three products. Drives brand discovery and new-to-brand traffic. Supports Store pages and custom landing pages.

SBV

Sponsored Brand Video

Auto-playing video in search results — no sound by default, so visuals must communicate instantly. High engagement format, often lower CPC than comparable display video.

SD

Sponsored Display

Self-serve display that runs on and off Amazon. Retargets product detail page viewers, category shoppers, and competitor purchasers. Lower technical barrier than DSP.

What actually drives performance

The levers that matter.

STRUCTURE

Campaign Architecture

The difference between profitable and wasteful PPC is structure. Brand vs. non-brand separation, match type segmentation, and ASIN-level granularity ensure you know exactly which keywords and products are generating returns — and which are draining budget.

Exact MatchPhrase MatchBroad MatchAuto
BIDDING

Bid Strategy & Target ACoS

Dynamic bidding (Up & Down, Down Only, Fixed) combined with a clearly defined target ACoS per ASIN — based on category margin, product lifecycle stage, and strategic intent (new launch vs. mature product vs. defensive spend).

Target ACoSBid+Dynamic BiddingTACoS
ANALYSIS

Search Term Mining

Regular search term report analysis reveals which queries are converting, which are wasting budget, and which should become new exact match targets. Negative keywords are just as important as positive ones — unchecked, they silently erode ROAS.

Search Term ReportsNegativesHarvestingQuery Analysis
$68BAmazon's global advertising revenue in 2025, roughly 8% of its US gross merchandise value [1]
Jan 2026Amazon tightened view attribution and split ROAS reporting across Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display vCPM and DSP [2]
TACoSTotal Advertising Cost of Sales — the metric that captures halo and full business impact, not just attributed return
NTBNew-to-Brand rate — the growth metric that ACOS optimisation alone will quietly destroy

The TNOMADS approach

We optimize for business outcomes, not vanity metrics.

📐

ASIN-level strategy

Every ASIN gets its own target ACoS based on margin, lifecycle stage, and strategic priority. A new launch, a hero SKU, and a defensive play all require different bid logic.

🔍

Same-SKU vs. Total ROAS

We track both same-SKU ROAS (for campaign optimization) and total/halo ROAS (for budget decisions) — because Sponsored Brands drive brand revenue that never appears in the campaign report.

🛡

Buy Box discipline

Ad spend on ASINs without the Buy Box is waste. We audit Buy Box health across your portfolio before scaling — and flag suppressed ASINs immediately.

The vocabulary

What are the components of an Amazon PPC programme?

Sponsored Products
Keyword and product-targeted ads for individual ASINs, appearing in search results and on detail pages. The highest-volume and highest-intent format, and where the majority of most accounts' spend sits.
Sponsored Brands
Headline and video formats featuring your logo and multiple products, available to brand-registered sellers. The main format for driving new-to-brand purchases and defending branded search.
Sponsored Display
Audience and product-targeted display placements on and off Amazon. Useful for detail page defence and simple remarketing; less capable than Amazon DSP.
ACOS
Advertising Cost of Sale — ad spend divided by attributed ad revenue. Measures efficiency of attributed sales only, which is why optimising to ACOS alone tends to shrink accounts.
TACoS
Total Advertising Cost of Sales — ad spend divided by total revenue, including organic. The closest single number to a real business health metric on Amazon.
New-to-Brand (NTB)
Revenue from shoppers who have not purchased your brand in the preceding 12 months. The growth signal that distinguishes acquisition from harvesting existing customers.
Match types
Broad, phrase and exact for keywords; plus automatic targeting and product/category targeting. Structure determines what data you get back, so match type strategy is a measurement decision as much as a bidding one.
Negative keywords
Terms blocked from serving. The most under-used lever in most accounts, and the fastest route to reclaiming wasted spend without touching bids.
Placement modifiers
Bid multipliers for top-of-search, rest-of-search and product pages. Top-of-search commonly converts at a materially different rate to product pages, so a single flat bid is almost always leaving money on the table.
Buy box
Whether you own the default purchase button. Ads do not serve when you lose the buy box, so buy box percentage is an advertising metric, not just a retail one.
Halo / organic lift
Sales that follow ad exposure but are not attributed to the ad. Invisible in campaign reports, visible in TACoS and in Amazon Marketing Cloud.
Portfolios
Grouping layer for campaigns with shared budgets and reporting. Misfiled campaigns inside portfolios are a common and silent cause of misstated product-line ROAS.

Comparisons

How does this compare to the alternatives?

Sponsored Products vs Sponsored Brands vs Sponsored Display

Three formats, three jobs. Most underperforming accounts are running all three toward the same objective.

Sponsored ProductsSponsored BrandsSponsored Display
Primary jobCapture existing search demandBuild brand presence and acquire new customersDefend detail pages and remarket
EligibilityAny eligible seller or vendorBrand Registry requiredBrand Registry required for most targeting
TargetingKeywords, ASINs, categories, automaticKeywords, categories, ASINsAudiences and product targets
Best KPIACOS and same-SKU returnNew-to-Brand rateImpression share on your own PDPs; view-attributed conversions
Typical failure modeBloated structure, no negatives, bid driftBranded terms inflating apparent performanceDuplicating DSP retargeting at worse efficiency
When to use whichSponsored Products should carry the volume, Sponsored Brands should be judged on new-to-brand rather than ROAS, and Sponsored Display should be scoped narrowly to defence and simple remarketing once DSP is running. Judging all three on ACOS produces an account that looks efficient and stops growing.

ACOS vs TACoS — which should you optimise to?

The distinction that determines whether your account grows or quietly contracts.

ACOSTACoS
FormulaAd spend ÷ ad-attributed salesAd spend ÷ total sales (ads + organic)
What it capturesEfficiency of attributed conversionsAdvertising's cost against the whole business
What it missesOrganic halo, brand building, new customer valueCampaign-level detail needed for bidding
Behaviour it encouragesBidding down to branded and repeat-purchase termsInvestment in acquisition where the business supports it
Correct useCampaign and keyword-level optimisationBudget and strategic decisions
When to use whichUse ACOS to make bid decisions and TACoS to make budget decisions. An account showing falling ACOS and rising TACoS is buying its own existing customers. An account showing rising ACOS and falling TACoS is usually growing correctly.

Amazon PPC vs Amazon DSP

Demand capture versus demand creation — and why comparing their ROAS is a category error.

Amazon PPCAmazon DSP
TriggerWhat the shopper searchedWho the shopper is
PricingCPCPrimarily CPM
ReachOnly shoppers already searchingShoppers who have never searched your category
Reported efficiencyHigher, by constructionLower, and window-sensitive
AccessAds Console, self-serveDSP seat, self-serve or managed
When to use whichPPC harvests demand; DSP creates it. Because PPC captures shoppers who were already looking, it will nearly always report a stronger ROAS — that is a measurement artefact, not evidence that DSP is underperforming. See Amazon DSP.

Real results

What does this work look like in practice?

Industry · Premium Food & Beverage

Rebuilding campaign architecture for long-term scalability

Challenge

The advertising account had expanded rapidly, resulting in inconsistent campaign structures, overlapping keyword targeting and limited visibility into acquisition versus brand defence.

Our approach

  • Redesigned campaign architecture
  • Separated branded and non-branded campaigns
  • Built product-specific keyword frameworks
  • Improved negative keyword governance
  • Simplified reporting structure

Business impact

The new structure improved reporting accuracy, reduced internal competition between campaigns and created a scalable foundation for future product launches.

Case studies are presented by industry rather than by client name. Figures are drawn from live account analysis. Engagements marked prior agency engagement were delivered by Ana Perez Ibarz in a previous agency role; the work and results are hers, the client relationships were the agency's. TNOMADS does not identify clients or publish client performance data without written consent.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions, answered directly.

Amazon PPC is Amazon's pay-per-click advertising system. Advertisers bid on keywords or product targets across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, and pay only when a shopper clicks. It is the main way products gain visibility in Amazon search results.
Sponsored Products promotes individual ASINs in search results and on detail pages. Sponsored Brands shows your logo and multiple products in headline or video formats and requires Brand Registry. Sponsored Display targets audiences and products with display placements on and off Amazon.
It depends entirely on your margin, category, price point and objective. A brand with 60% gross margin launching a new product can rationally run at an ACOS that would bankrupt a brand with 20% margin defending a mature SKU. Set your target from your contribution margin, not from a published benchmark.
TACoS is ad spend divided by total sales including organic. Because it includes organic revenue, it reveals whether advertising is growing the business or just buying sales that would have happened anyway. Falling ACOS alongside rising TACoS is a warning sign, not a success.
New-to-Brand measures revenue from shoppers who have not bought your brand in the previous twelve months. It separates genuine customer acquisition from re-buying your existing customers, which ACOS optimisation will otherwise drive you toward without ever showing you.
Separate brand from non-brand. Separate match types so you can control and read them independently. Group products by margin and objective rather than by catalogue convenience. Keep portfolios clean, because misfiled campaigns silently distort product-line reporting.
Fewer than most accounts run. Sprawling keyword lists dilute budget and make it impossible to read what is working. Single-keyword or tightly themed ad groups give cleaner data and better control, at the cost of more structure to maintain.
Negative keywords stop your ads serving on specific terms. They are the fastest way to reclaim wasted spend without touching bids. Review search term reports regularly and add negatives for irrelevant, off-category and cannibalising terms — and audit existing negatives, because an over-broad negative phrase can block an entire keyword cluster.
The most common causes are losing the buy box, running out of stock, a suppressed or ineligible listing, budget exhaustion early in the day, bids below the competitive floor, or an over-broad negative keyword blocking the term. Check buy box status first — ads do not serve without it.
Directly. If you do not hold the buy box, your Sponsored Products ads generally will not serve. That makes buy box percentage an advertising metric, not just a retail one, and it is why campaigns can collapse overnight with no change to bids or budget.
Automatic campaigns let Amazon choose targets based on your listing; manual campaigns give you explicit control over keywords and product targets. The standard approach is to use automatic campaigns as a discovery mechanism, then promote converting terms into manual campaigns and negative them out of the automatic one.
Usually yes, but for defensive rather than efficiency reasons. Branded terms will always report excellent ROAS because those shoppers were already looking for you. Track branded and non-brand performance separately so branded returns do not mask weak acquisition performance.
Start from your target TACoS and total revenue rather than from a fixed budget. If your business can support advertising at 10% of total revenue and you are doing $500,000 a month, that frames the envelope. Then allocate within it by objective — defence, harvesting, acquisition and launch.
New campaigns need roughly two weeks to gather enough data for meaningful bid decisions, and four to eight weeks to stabilise. Making daily bid changes in the first fortnight is one of the most common ways to prevent an account from ever finding its level.
A bid multiplier applied to top-of-search, rest-of-search or product page placements. Conversion rates commonly differ substantially between placements, so a single flat bid across all three is usually either overpaying for product pages or underbidding for top of search.
Yes. Self-competition happens when the same ASIN is targeted by multiple campaigns on overlapping terms, bidding up your own CPCs. It is one of the most common findings in account audits and one of the easiest to fix through structure and negatives.
The formats are broadly similar, but reporting granularity, available metrics and some targeting options differ, and Vendor accounts have access to certain formats and data that Sellers do not. Campaign strategy should account for these differences rather than being ported across unchanged.
Yes, but with the structure planned before the promotion starts. Deals and coupons change conversion rates, which changes the economics of every bid in the account. Promotional windows also expose ASIN-level inconsistencies, where some listings carry the promotion and others do not.
Sales that follow ad exposure but are not credited to the ad — for example, a shopper who sees a Sponsored Brands ad, does not click, and later buys a different product from your range. It is invisible in campaign reports and is one of the main reasons TACoS matters.
Not to operate campaigns, but it answers questions the console cannot: how Sponsored Ads and DSP overlap, how many touches precede a purchase, and how much attributed revenue is genuinely incremental. See Amazon Marketing Cloud.
Common signals: spend growing faster than revenue, ACOS improving while total sales flatten, hundreds of campaigns with only a handful enabled, no negative keyword programme, or nobody able to explain why the structure looks the way it does. See retail media audit.
It is the demand capture layer. It works best when something upstream is creating demand — Amazon DSP, Google Ads, or retail media on other networks. See retail media strategy.

Why TNOMADS

Why work with TNOMADS on Amazon?

13+years managing Amazon Ads accounts
ASINlevel reporting, not campaign-level summaries
AMCclean room analysis included, not sold as an upsell
1:1direct access to the consultant running the account

About the author

Who wrote this page?

Ana Perez Ibarz

Senior Retail Media Consultant

Amazon AdsAmazon DSPAmazon Marketing Cloud Walmart ConnectInstacartRetail Media Strategy

Last reviewed 16 August 2026

Ana Perez Ibarz is the founder of TNOMADS Consulting and has spent 13+ years in retail media and performance marketing. She manages live campaign operations across Amazon Ads (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud), Walmart Connect, Instacart, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, Loblaws Advance, DoorDash, Criteo, Google Ads and Meta.

On Amazon PPC, Ana runs live Seller and Vendor Central accounts across multi-SKU catalogues — campaign architecture, keyword and negative strategy, bid and placement management, portfolio hygiene, buy box diagnostics and SP-API reporting. This page reflects patterns seen repeatedly in real accounts rather than general best practice.

She works as a subcontracted specialist for agencies as well as directly with brands, and writes on retail media measurement, incrementality and commerce media architecture. Based in Granada, Spain; operating across North America and Europe.

More about Ana and TNOMADS →

Sources

Where do these figures come from?

A note on these sourcesGuidance on this page about campaign learning periods, structure and account hygiene reflects TNOMADS' operating experience across live accounts rather than published Amazon benchmarks. Be sceptical of widely circulated Amazon statistics: several of the most-quoted figures in this category have no traceable primary source.

Related services

What should you read next?

Amazon DSP

The programmatic layer that creates the demand Sponsored Ads harvests.

Amazon Marketing Cloud

Overlap, path to purchase and incrementality analysis for Sponsored Ads and DSP.

Retail Media Audit

Structural review of campaign architecture, negatives, portfolios and wasted spend.

Incrementality

Whether your attributed sales would have happened anyway.

Walmart Connect

The same disciplines applied to Walmart's retail media network.

Retail Media Strategy

How Amazon PPC budget should sit alongside every other channel.

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