What are Sponsored Products Ads?
Benefits of Sponsored Products Ads
Improved visibility
Ads appear exactly where customers will see them on Amazon. They are simply placed throughout the shopping results pages as well as on the product detail pages, where shoppers can clearly see them.
Increased Sales
Advertisers can reach customers who are browsing for similar products and immediately direct them to your product page
Controlled costs
The cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model means you only pay when shoppers click on your ads. This makes it easy to control exactly how much you spend by setting a budget and choosing what you are willing to bid per click (see bidding breakdown). Sometimes, Amazon will automatically pause the campaign if the product is out-of-stock, but to be sure, it is best to manually pause campaigns if a product is no longer available
Automatically Generated
Auto campaigns permit easy keyword harvesting, especially when advertising in a marketplace with a different language. For more information on keyword utilization best practices, get in touch with the advertising experts at factor-a.
Easily Measurable
Different sales and performance metrics are available with Sponsored Products that provide insights into the impact of advertising on your business and help you optimize future campaigns
According to Amazon, ASINs saw an average weekly +54% increase in glance views and +40% increase in the units ordered weekly average within the first year of using Sponsored Products.
Targeting with Sponsored Products
Pro tip: Amazon will sometimes automatically pause your campaign if our product goes out-of-stock, but it is not guaranteed. In order to ensure you are not paying for ads for products that are not in-stock, be sure to manually pause the campaigns until the product becomes available again.
How to Create and Use a Sponsored Products Campaign
In order to be eligible to use Sponsored Products ads, you must be a professional seller, a vendor, book vendor, direct publishing author, or agency. You must also have an account in good standing with Amazon, product listings that are eligible in at least one category, a valid payment method and be able to ship to the country in which you wish to advertise.
Certain products, including adult, used and refurbished products are not eligible for Sponsored Products ads, as well as products that do not comply with the retail policy. Books must also meet the creative requirements provided by Amazon (see here) in order to be considered eligible. The table below also outlines the categories that are only available for vendors and KDP authors to use Sponsored Products.
Building a campaign, step-by-step:
In Settings, create a:
- Campaign Name - this is only visible to you, and we recommend choosing one based on the type of products you will be advertising to keep your campaigns organized
- Portfolio - this is a group of campaigns, which allows you to file them in an organized matter, sorting those that are similar with one another
- Start/End date - you can choose to start your campaign immediately or select a date in the future for it to begin. You can also select any date for your campaign to end or allow it to run continuously. It is also possible to pause your campaign at any point and choose to start it again later. As soon as a campaign ends, the status will change to “Ended,” or you can extend a campaign by moving the end date. If you choose to archive a campaign you no longer want to run, it cannot be restarted
- Daily budget - average amount you are willing to spend in one day, spread out across the month
- Bidding - You can also adjust your bids for placements, meaning different bids for top placements vs. product detail pages and adjust your bid strategy, choosing from:
- Fixed bids
- Dynamic bids: down only
- Dynamic bids: up and down
- Keyword and product targeting: you can select either manual or automatic targeting
Automatic and Manual Targeting Options
There are two options for targeting for Sponsored Products Ads: Automatic or Manual. These use keywords and products to show your ads to relevant shoppers as they browse search results and product detail pages on Amazon.
- Automatic Targeting - Amazon matches keywords and products with the product you are advertising based on shopper searches related to your product information.
- Manual Targeting - This allows advertisers to choose different match types for keywords and specific categories, products, brands or features related to your product.
Book vendors and KDP authors must: Select Ad format
- Standard - launch a campaign quickly without custom copy
- Custom - include your own copy to provide info about your book (attention: the language of the book must match that of the site you are advertising on)
Create an ad group by entering a title in the create an ad group section.
Note: this is not available for campaigns with custom text
Submit your ad!
Note: before submitting, review all the information you have entered to ensure that you are happy with the results
- You have the option to save an ad as a draft and submit it later
- Generally the ad will go live within 1-2 hours after submission
- Performance metrics usually become available in campaign manager after the ad has been live for 12 hours
Note: Campaign Limits
Keep in mind when creating campaigns, Amazon sets limits on the number of campaigns you can have in your account, as well as factors like ASINs per campaign, keywords and negative keywords per campaign, etc. Please observe the table below for the full overview of campaign limits.
