Sponsored Brands Ads: The Complete Guide for Amazon Sellers

Sponsored Brands are Amazon ads that feature your brand logo, a custom headline and multiple products (or a video) in prominent placements, including the banner at the top of search results. They require Amazon Brand Registry, and they work best on keywords and brand terms where you already know Sponsored Products converts.

This guide covers eligibility, the three formats, targeting and bidding, landing pages, and how to measure Sponsored Brands fairly against Sponsored Products.

Who can run Sponsored Brands

Sponsored Brands are available to sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, as well as vendors and agencies working with registered brands. Your products also need to be in eligible categories and, as with other sponsored ads, your offer generally needs to be the featured offer (Buy Box) for the ad to serve. If you aren't registered yet, start with Brand Registry for Amazon ads.

The three Sponsored Brands formats

Each format has its own strengths, and you will usually run more than one. Video tends to earn attention in the middle of search results; product collection and store spotlight often use the top-of-search banner. Dig into each in Sponsored Brands video ads and store spotlight ads.

Targeting options

Sponsored Brands campaigns support:

• Keyword targeting with broad, phrase and exact match, plus negative exact and negative phrase.
• Product targeting: specific ASINs or categories, with refinements like brand and price.
• Theme targeting, where Amazon matches your ad to keyword themes such as your brand or your landing page's products. Useful for discovery, but watch the search term report closely.

A practical rule: start Sponsored Brands keyword campaigns on terms that already convert in Sponsored Products exact. You know shoppers on those searches want your product, so the extra brand exposure has a good chance of paying off.

Bidding and cost model

Most Sponsored Brands campaigns use cost-per-click bidding, and you can choose a campaign goal such as driving page visits or growing brand impression share. Amazon has added more bidding controls to Sponsored Brands over time, including placement-based bid adjustments, and some goals use viewable impression (vCPM) billing. Check the options in your campaign builder, because they vary by marketplace and format.

Cost per click on Sponsored Brands is often similar to or higher than Sponsored Products for the same keyword, especially for the top-of-search banner. That makes conversion rate on the landing page important.

Headline and creative

For product collection and store spotlight, you write a short headline (Amazon enforces a character limit, around 50 characters in the US) and pick a logo and products. Amazon reviews the creative against its ad policies before the campaign runs. Keep headlines specific and benefit-led, and avoid claims Amazon will reject, like 'best seller' without substantiation or time-sensitive language. Practical copy formulas are in Sponsored Brands headline tips.

Step-by-step setup

1. In the Amazon Ads console, create a campaign and choose Sponsored Brands.
2. Pick a campaign goal and format (product collection, store spotlight or video).
3. Choose the landing page: your Store, a Store sub-page, a product detail page (video) or a new product list page.
4. Select your brand, logo and products. Put your best converter first.
5. Write the headline and add any custom image Amazon offers for the format.
6. Choose keyword or product targeting, add your keywords with bids, and add negatives.
7. Set the budget and dates, then submit for moderation. Review usually takes up to a few days.

Worked example: is Sponsored Brands paying off?

You sell a set of silicone baking mats. In Sponsored Products exact, 'silicone baking mat' runs at 25% ACoS. You launch a product collection campaign on the same keyword and three related ones. After 30 days:

On ACoS alone, Sponsored Brands looks worse. But 65% of its orders came from shoppers who hadn't bought from your brand in the lookback period, and Sponsored Brands uses a 14-day attribution window while Sponsored Products for sellers uses 7 days, so the two aren't measured identically. If your break-even ACoS is 40%, the Sponsored Brands campaign is profitable and is bringing in new customers. Check your break-even with the break-even ACoS calculator, and see new-to-brand metrics for how to use that data.

Landing page choices

Where the click goes matters as much as the ad. You have three common options, and each suits a different keyword type:

• A Store page: best for brand searches and broad category searches, where shoppers want to browse your range. Build a page focused on the products in the ad, not your Store home page with everything on it.
• A product list page: Amazon can generate a simple page showing the products you selected. It's quick to set up and keeps the shopper focused, but it gives you no design control.
• A single product detail page: used by video ads. Best when one product clearly fits the search and has strong reviews.

A quick test: if your Sponsored Brands click-through rate is healthy but conversion rate is much lower than the same keyword in Sponsored Products, the landing page is the likely culprit. Try a tighter page with fewer, more relevant products before you cut bids.

How to structure Sponsored Brands campaigns

Apply the same discipline you use in Sponsored Products. Separate campaigns by format, because video and product collection behave differently. Separate branded keywords from non-branded ones. And within non-branded, keep exact match for proven terms in its own campaign, with a smaller broad or phrase campaign for discovery. A small brand might start with just three Sponsored Brands campaigns:

1. SB | Collection | Branded | Exact: your brand name and close variants, low bids.
2. SB | Collection | Non-branded | Exact: your top 5 to 15 proven keywords.
3. SBV | Video | Non-branded | Exact: the same proven keywords, to compare video against collection.

Name them consistently so you can compare formats at a glance; Amazon PPC campaign structure covers the Sponsored Products side of the same blueprint.

Optimization rules

• Review the search term report weekly, just like Sponsored Products, and negate irrelevant terms.
• If a keyword has 15+ clicks and no orders, lower its bid 20% or pause it.
• If ACoS is below target and impression share is low, raise bids 10% at a time.
• Rotate creative every couple of months. Test a new headline or product order against the current one rather than changing everything at once.
• Run branded Sponsored Brands campaigns separately so cheap brand clicks don't mask non-branded performance.

AdSpark includes Sponsored Brands headline and creative help, and its bid optimizer can manage Sponsored Brands keyword bids toward your target ACoS alongside your Sponsored Products campaigns.

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