Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands great for catching shoppers in the search results. But what about customers who click, browse, and then leave? That’s where Amazon Sponsored Display comes in.
Think of it as your brand’s follow-up team, reaching shoppers both on and off Amazon to keep your products top-of-mind. These ads are less about that first search and more about re-engaging shoppers throughout their buying journey. They can appear on competitor pages, third-party websites, and even mobile apps.
What Are Amazon Sponsored Display Ads?
Sponsored Display is a gentle reminder for a shopper who looked at your product but didn’t buy. It gives them a simple, direct path back to your product detail page, helping you capture sales that might have otherwise been lost.
This makes it a key part of any complete Amazon advertising strategy because it’s all about re-engagement. It goes beyond keyword searches to target audiences based on their actual shopping behaviors.
Here’s a quick look at how these ads follow shoppers around the web.
As you can see, your ads don’t just stay on Amazon. They travel with the customer, keeping your brand visible while they read news, check blogs, or browse other sites. It’s a subtle but constant presence.
To really get it, you need to understand how it differs from other campaign types. Sponsored Products target active shoppers on Amazon right now. Sponsored Brands build awareness at the top of the search results. But Sponsored Display works across the entire customer journey, from initial interest to the final purchase. If you need a refresher on the basics, this overview of PPC on Amazon is a good place to start.
The goal is simple: keep your product in front of high-intent shoppers, whether they’re on a competitor’s page or their favorite app. That constant visibility is a big deal for both brand recall and direct sales.
Why Sponsored Display Is Essential for Sellers
The real power of an Amazon Sponsored Display campaign is its versatility. You can use it for much more than just basic retargeting.
Here are a few ways smart sellers use it:
- Defend Your Product Pages: Place ads on your own listings to upsell, cross-sell, and block competitors from stealing your traffic.
- Target Competitors Directly: Place your ad on the product detail pages of your direct rivals. This gets you in front of shoppers at the exact moment they are considering the competition.
- Recapture Lost Interest: Re-engage anyone who viewed your product in the last 30 days but didn’t buy. It’s the ultimate second chance to close a sale.
- Find New Audiences: Use Amazon’s huge pool of shopping data to find new customers based on their interests, lifestyle, and past purchases.
Adding this ad type isn’t a small adjustment; it can seriously impact your bottom line. According to Amazon, brands that added Sponsored Display saw an average 16% year-over-year sales increase and a 26% improvement in return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to those who only used other ad types.
Connecting with shoppers at so many different touchpoints makes Sponsored Display a critical tool for any modern Amazon seller. It’s not just about winning the first click anymore; it’s about staying relevant and winning the final sale.
Sponsored Display Targeting Options
This is where the real strategy comes in. Deciding who sees your Amazon Sponsored Display ads is what separates a profitable campaign from one that just burns cash. Unlike Sponsored Products, which rely on keywords, Sponsored Display lets you target shoppers based on their location and behavior.
1. Contextual Targeting
This is the most direct approach. You’re not trying to figure out a shopper’s entire history; you’re just focused on what they are looking at right now.
- Product Targeting: This lets you choose specific product detail pages to run your ads on. You can target individual ASINs of your competitors, place your ad on a complementary product’s page, or even target your own products to cross-sell. For example, if you sell a premium coffee grinder, you could target the ASINs of top-selling espresso machines.
- Category Targeting: This is your wider net. Instead of picking ASINs one by one, you target entire product categories or sub-categories. You can then add filters for brand, price, or star rating to focus on the right traffic. It’s a great way to get in front of shoppers browsing for items like yours without manually collecting ASINs.
When you use category targeting, always use the filters. Just targeting “Home & Kitchen” is like throwing spaghetti at the wall; you’ll waste a lot of ad spend. Instead, drill down to “Coffee Grinders,” filter for 4-star and up reviews, and set a price point that matches your own.
2. Remarketing Audiences
With Audience targeting, the focus shifts from the product to the person. This is where you re-engage shoppers who’ve already shown interest in your brand, which is an incredibly effective tactic.
- Views Remarketing: This is classic retargeting. You can serve ads to shoppers who viewed your product detail page within a certain timeframe (e.g., the last 30 days) but didn’t buy. It’s a simple way to stay top-of-mind and bring back on-the-fence shoppers.
- Purchases Remarketing: This strategy targets your past customers. You can use it to encourage repeat buys, cross-sell another product in your catalog, or announce a new launch to your most loyal fans. If someone bought your shampoo last month, you could show them an ad for the matching conditioner.
3. In-Market Audiences
Finds shoppers who are actively browsing and showing strong buying signals within a specific category. Amazon is telling you, “This person is ready to buy something like your product.”
4. Interest and Lifestyle Audiences
Lifestyle: Targets shoppers based on their long-term buying habits, like “Eco-Friendly Shoppers” or “Fitness Enthusiasts.”
Interests: Similar to Lifestyle but based on more recent browsing behavior.
To help you decide which audience type fits your goals, here’s a quick breakdown:
Choosing The Right Audience Strategy
This table will help you match the right audience targeting method to what you’re trying to achieve.
| Audience Type | What It Does | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Views Remarketing | Shows ads to shoppers who viewed your product but didn’t buy. | Conversions (recapture lost sales) |
| Purchases Remarketing | Shows ads to past customers. | Loyalty & LTV (drive repeat business) |
| In-Market Audiences | Targets shoppers actively researching products in your category. | Consideration (win competitive sales) |
| Lifestyle/Interests | Reaches shoppers based on their habits and browsing behavior. | Awareness (find new customers) |
Each of these gives you a different angle. For new customer acquisition, Lifestyle and In-Market are great starting points. For maximizing profit from existing customers, remarketing is pure gold.
While the average conversion rate for Amazon ads is around 9-10%, a well-executed Sponsored Display campaign can often push that to 15% or more. It’s built to engage shoppers at every stage of their buying journey.
Choosing the right audience comes down to knowing your product and ideal customer. A great tool for this is Amazon’s own data. You can learn more in our detailed guide to using Amazon Brand Analytics in 2025. By combining these targeting options, you can build an ad funnel that finds new customers and keeps your loyal ones coming back.
How to Create a Sponsored Display Campaign
Alright, let’s build your first Amazon Sponsored Display campaign. The Amazon Ads Console can seem a bit much at first, but the process is more straightforward than it looks. We’ll walk through it step-by-step.
Getting the setup right from the start is the best way to avoid wasting ad spend on common mistakes.
Step 1: Set Up the Campaign
First, go to the Campaign Manager in your Amazon Ads account and click “Create campaign.” When asked for your ad type, select “Sponsored Display.”
Now you’re ready to go. You’ll need to name your campaign, set its run dates, and decide on a daily budget.
Step 2: Set Up the Campaign
Set campaign name, start/end date and daily budget.
- Campaign Name: Be descriptive. A clean naming convention will save you headaches later. A good structure is
[Product] - [Targeting Type] - [Goal]. For example:Coffee Grinder - Views Remarketing - Conversions. - Start/End Dates: If it’s an ongoing campaign, you can just let it run. But for a holiday promotion or seasonal product, set a specific end date.
- Daily Budget: You don’t need to go big at first. Start with something comfortable, like $20 to $50 a day. You can always increase it once you see what’s working.
Step 3: Choose Ad format and Landing Page
Pick Image (single image product ad) or Video (auto-play video placements) depending on assets you have. Then choose landing destination either product detail page or Amazon Store. Product detail pages are most common for direct conversions.
Step 4: Choose Optimization Strategy
Then you’ll choose your bidding optimization strategy. This tells Amazon what you want to achieve.
- Reach (Optimize for Reach vCPM): The goal is to get your ad in front of as many people as possible. You pay per 1,000 viewable impressions (vCPM). It’s best for top-of-funnel brand awareness when direct sales aren’t the main goal.
- Optimize for Page Visits (CPC): Here, you’re paying for clicks (CPC). Amazon’s algorithm looks for shoppers who are more likely to click through to your product page. This is a solid mid-funnel strategy to drive consideration.
- Optimize for Conversions (CPC): You still pay per click, but Amazon focuses on showing your ads to people most likely to buy. For most sellers, this is the go-to choice because it’s all about driving sales.
For most sellers, Optimize for Conversions is the smartest place to start. It directly ties your ad spend to sales, making it clear if you’re getting a good return.
Step 5: Select Your Targeting
Now for the important part: deciding who sees your ads. As discussed, you have two main options: Contextual Targeting and Audiences.
- Contextual Targeting: This is about where your ad shows up. You can place ads on specific product pages (like a competitor’s) or within entire categories.
- Audiences: This targets shoppers based on what they’ve done. Use Views remarketing to bring back people who viewed your product but didn’t buy, Purchases remarketing to re-engage past customers, or use Amazon’s pre-built audiences (like In-market or Lifestyle shoppers).
If you’re just starting, a Views remarketing campaign is a great first choice. It targets a warm, high-intent audience and almost always delivers a strong ROAS.
Step 6: Customize Your Ad Creative
One of the best things about Sponsored Display is that you aren’t stuck with a generic ad. Amazon will create a default ad using your product’s main image and title, but you can, and should, improve it.
Add your brand logo and write a custom headline. A good headline is short and highlights benefits. Instead of just your product name, try something like “Durable, Quiet, and Consistent.” It’s a simple change that can make a real difference in your click-through rate (CTR). This is the same approach used in Amazon Sponsored Brands campaigns, where creative is a huge factor.
Step 7: Launch and Monitor
Last step. Select the specific products you want to advertise in this ad group. Once they’re added, give everything one final look. Double-check your budget, targeting, and ad creative.
If it looks good, hit “Launch campaign.”
But your work isn’t done. For the first few weeks, you need to watch your Campaign Manager. Keep a close eye on metrics like impressions, CTR, CPC, and especially your ACoS or ROAS. This initial data will show you what’s working and what needs to be adjusted.
Optimizing Your Campaigns
Launching an Amazon Sponsored Display campaign is just the beginning. The real profit comes from what you do next. Many sellers “set and forget” their campaigns, but the winners are constantly tweaking and optimizing.
To do it right, you need a clear plan that connects your actions to your business goals. Let’s break down how to optimize based on three common objectives: building brand awareness (Reach), driving traffic (Page Visits), and maximizing sales (Conversions). This approach helps you make data-driven decisions that actually improve performance.
The Amazon Ads Console provides a lot of data. The trick is knowing which numbers matter for each goal.
1. Optimizing for Reach
When your main goal is to get your brand in front of as many relevant people as possible, you’re focused on awareness. This is a top-of-funnel strategy to introduce your products to new audiences.
- Primary Metric: Your main metric here is Viewable Cost Per Mille (vCPM). This tells you what you’re paying for 1,000 viewable impressions. A lower vCPM is better.
- Bidding Strategy: When setting up your campaign, choose “Optimize for reach.” This tells Amazon’s algorithm to show your ad to the largest possible audience at the most efficient cost.
- Targeting: Go broad. Use targeting options like Lifestyle, Interests, or In-market audiences to find new potential customers.
The goal isn’t an immediate sale. It’s about making sure that when a shopper is ready to buy, your brand is the first one they think of.
2. Optimizing for Page Visits
If you want to get more shoppers to your product page, this is a mid-funnel strategy focused on getting clicks and pulling interested shoppers to your listing.
- Primary Metrics: Watch your Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Cost-Per-Click (CPC). A high CTR means your ad is grabbing attention, while a low CPC means you’re driving traffic efficiently.
- Bidding Strategy: The choice is simple: “Optimize for page visits.” This tells Amazon to show your ads to shoppers who are more likely to click.
- Targeting: This is where contextual targeting is most effective. Target specific competitor ASINs or narrow categories to intercept shoppers who are actively comparing products.
A high-quality ad creative is essential for driving clicks. You can learn more about optimizing product pictures for Amazon to make your ad stand out.
3. Optimizing for Conversions
For most sellers, this is the main goal: turning ad spend into profitable sales. This is a bottom-of-funnel strategy focused on maximizing your return.
- Primary Metrics: Here, Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) are your key indicators. A low ACoS and a high ROAS mean your campaigns are making you money.
- Bidding Strategy: “Optimize for conversions” is the clear choice. Amazon will use its data to predict which shoppers are most likely to buy and show your ads to them.
- Targeting: Views Remarketing is your best tool for conversions. You’re targeting shoppers who have already visited your product page, which means they’ve shown strong buying intent.
Pro Tip: Never mix goals in a single campaign. A campaign built for Reach with broad targeting will perform differently than a focused Conversions campaign using remarketing. Keep them separate for clean data and effective optimization.
As you grow, managing different campaign types can get complicated. If you’re looking to improve your strategy, professional Amazon ads management can provide the structure needed to drive consistent growth. By aligning every campaign with a clear goal, you turn your ad spend from an expense into an investment.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Even the best ad tools can lose you money if you’re not careful, and Amazon Sponsored Display is no different. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do. Here are a few costly mistakes sellers often make.
Avoiding these common errors will help you run more efficient campaigns, protect your ad budget, and see better results sooner.
1. Using One Budget for Different Audiences
A big mistake is lumping a broad, top-of-funnel audience (like Lifestyle) into the same campaign as a focused, bottom-of-funnel group (like Views Remarketing). A shopper who has already visited your product page has much higher purchase intent than someone Amazon has simply flagged as a “fitness enthusiast.”
When you group them together, your budget gets spent unevenly. The larger, broader audience will almost always use up your daily spend before your high-converting remarketing audience gets a fair chance.
Always split your campaigns by targeting type and goal. Build one campaign for Views Remarketing with a “Conversions” objective. Then, create a separate campaign for your broader “Reach” goals using Amazon Audiences. This gives you precise control over your budget for each part of your funnel.
2. Not Customizing Ad Creatives
Amazon makes it easy to launch a campaign by auto-filling your product’s main image and title. While convenient, this default creative is rarely optimized to grab attention. When you rely on it, you’re leaving clicks and engagement on the table.
Your ad is competing for attention against countless other distractions. A generic ad will just blend in, leading to fewer clicks and wasted impressions.
The Fix: Take the extra minute to add your brand logo and write a custom headline. Instead of your product’s boring title, try a benefit-driven headline like “Sleep Deeper, Wake Refreshed.” Test a few headlines to see what connects with your audience and drives a higher CTR.
3. Mixing Unrelated Products in One Ad Group
It’s tempting to put all your products into a single ad group to save time, but this creates a messy, untargeted campaign. If you’re advertising a coffee grinder, a toaster, and a blender in the same ad group, your targeting becomes too generic.
A shopper looking for a coffee grinder won’t be interested in an ad that also features a toaster. This lack of relevance hurts engagement and your ROAS.
The Fix: Structure your ad groups thematically. Put all your coffee grinders in one ad group and all your blenders in another. This allows you to tailor your targeting and ad creative specifically to the products you’re showing, making your ads more relevant and effective.
The scale of Amazon Sponsored Display is huge, with over 60 billion average daily impressions. Just avoiding these common mistakes puts you in a much better position to succeed. For more practical advice, explore our guide on Amazon advertising tips.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions about Amazon Sponsored Display? You’re not alone. Here are some of the most common ones we hear from sellers.
1. Is Sponsored Display the Same as Amazon DSP?
No, they are different tools, though they both involve display ads.
Amazon Sponsored Display is a self-service tool inside the Amazon Ads console. It’s designed for sellers and vendors to quickly create display campaigns, mainly focused on remarketing and product targeting with flexible budgets.
Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is an enterprise-level tool. It’s a programmatic ad platform that offers massive reach across the web, detailed audience targeting, and video and audio ad formats. However, it usually requires a significant minimum ad spend (often starting at $50,000 in the US as of 2024) and more expertise to manage effectively.
2. Can I Run Sponsored Display Ads Off Amazon?
Yes, and that’s one of its biggest advantages. While some of your ads will appear on Amazon itself (like on competitor product pages), Sponsored Display can also follow potential customers to other websites and mobile apps.
This is the power of retargeting. It keeps your product in front of shoppers even after they leave Amazon, giving them a reminder to come back and complete their purchase.
3. What’s a Good Starting Budget?
You don’t need a huge budget to start. A good starting point for a new Amazon Sponsored Display campaign is between $20 to $50 per day. This is enough to gather initial performance data without a big risk.
For a views remarketing campaign, you can probably start at the lower end of that range since you’re targeting a smaller, highly interested audience. If you’re targeting broader audiences (like in-market or lifestyle segments), you might want a slightly higher budget to get enough impressions to see what works.
4. Do I Need Brand Registry to Use Sponsored Display?
You don’t need Brand Registry for the basic functions of Sponsored Display. You can start right away with product targeting and views remarketing using the standard, auto-generated ad creatives.
However, to unlock the more powerful features, you’ll need to be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. This gives you access to custom ad creatives where you can add your logo and headline, plus certain advanced Amazon Audiences. We highly recommend it; customizing your creative can significantly improve your click-through rate.
