What Are Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads?

Advertising plays a crucial role in helping Amazon sellers scale their brands and stand out in a competitive marketplace. Sponsored Brand Ads are a powerful tool that not only boost visibility but also drive brand awareness by showcasing your logo, custom headlines, and products to the right audience.

These ads help increase traffic, build customer trust, and ultimately grow sales by reaching shoppers throughout their buying journey. With benefits like enhanced targeting and measurable results, Sponsored Brand Ads are a key strategy for sellers looking to take their business to the next level.

What Are Amazon Sponsored Brand ads?

Amazon Sponsored Brand ads (previously known as Amazon Headline Search ads) are pay-per-click (PPC) ads that appear at the top of Amazon search results, above sponsored product ads, as well as on product retail pages, and on the homepage.

They are displayed prominently and can feature your brand’s logo, custom headlines, and up to three products. These eye-catching ads are designed to help brands stand out in a competitive marketplace and drive traffic to their listings.

The main difference between the placement of Amazon Sponsored Brand ads and Amazon Sponsored Product Ads is that Sponsored Brand ads are displayed at the top of search results, above sponsored product ads. This prime placement ensures maximum visibility for your brand, enabling you to reach potential customers as soon as they begin their search on Amazon.

Statistically, around 30% of all the ads on Amazon are Sponsored Brand ads — and while that might seem like a small number, it is worth noting that usage has gone up exponentially over the last few years. It makes sense: with Amazon averaging 82,323 daily impressions per user in 2024, Sponsored Brand Ads contribute significantly to this volume by appearing prominently in search results.

Sponsored Brand ads can be extremely beneficial for your business. They can:

• Increase brand visibility
• Drive high-quality traffic to your product listings
• Boost brand recognition through custom creatives
• Promote multiple products at once
• Enhance customer trust and loyalty
• Improve overall sales and revenue

Here’s an in-depth look at Amazon Sponsored Brand ads, if you want to learn more about them:

Amazon Sponsored Brands Advertising Explained

Eligibility for Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads

If you are considering Amazon Sponsored Brand ads, you should know that you need to use the Amazon Brand Registry. That means you need to have a registered trademark for your brand and an active Amazon Seller Central account.

In addition, your sponsored brand ads must comply with Amazon’s Creative Acceptance Policies in order to be approved and displayed on the platform. Some of the key policies to keep in mind include:

• Your ad must not contain false or misleading claims
• It cannot feature prohibited products such as illegal or unsafe items
• It should comply with all applicable laws and regulations
• The use of competitor trademarks is not allowed without their permission
• It cannot contain offensive or inappropriate content

It is important to note that Amazon has strict rules when it comes to Sponsored Brand ads, and any violation of these policies can result in your ads being rejected, or even worse, your account being suspended. Therefore, it is crucial to thoroughly review and adhere to Amazon’s policies before creating your Sponsored Brand ad campaigns.

What are the Sponsored Brands Ad Format Types?

As an Amazon Seller, you can run Sponsored Brand ads in different format types, each with its own unique advantages and benefits. Yet, no matter what type of brand ads you are running, Amazon offers versatile options to meet your goals.

These ads are ideal for driving brand awareness, consideration, customer acquisition, and loyalty. With targeting options like keywords, categories, and products, you can reach shoppers browsing the Amazon store. Ads can appear on top of or within shopping results and product detail pages, across both mobile and desktop devices.

Available formats include product collections, Brand Store spotlights, and customizable video ads or lifestyle images. When clicked, these ads can lead shoppers to your product detail page, Brand Store, or a custom landing page. Pricing options are flexible, including cost-per-click, cost per thousand impressions, and daily budgets. These ad campaigns are available to sellers enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, and agencies, providing powerful tools to connect with customers.

Here’s more about each type of Amazon Brand ads:

Product Collection

Product Collection ads are a powerful advertising solution when you want to showcase a group of related products in one place. These ads allow shoppers to browse multiple items directly within the ad, making it easier for them to find what they need while discovering complementary products.

Because they present a curated selection of items that work well together, Product Collection Amazon ads are an effective tool for driving traffic and boosting cross-sell opportunities. They’re perfect for brands looking to increase exposure to a variety of products in a cohesive, engaging way.

These ads are strategically placed where they can make the most impact—typically on search result pages or product detail pages. This placement ensures that customers can easily explore multiple products from the same brand while already in a shopping mindset. Whether they’re browsing for ideas or looking for specific items, the design of Product Collection ads makes it simple for users to find and interact with the brand’s offerings.

For example, imagine seeing a Product Collection ad on a search results page, showcasing a coordinated set of items, like a lamp, rug, and throw pillows for a stylish living room setup. This type of advertising catches the eye and helps customers envision how products work together, increasing the likelihood of a purchase.

Brand Store Spotlight

Brand Store Spotlight ads are a powerful way to showcase your brand’s storefront while offering customers a personalized shopping experience. These Amazon ads invite shoppers to explore your entire product range and dive deeper into your brand story, making them an effective tool for building connections with your audience.

With Spotlight ads, you can take your curated Brand Store to the next level by helping more shoppers discover it. Showcase up to three Brand Store sub-pages in your Sponsored Brands campaign, each featuring a unique product. Customize your ad by entering a headline, selecting a brand logo, and tailoring the sub-page static images and labels to fit your campaign. While the first three sub-pages of your Brand Store are preselected for your ad, you can easily change which ones to feature.

Featured prominently on Amazon’s homepage or at the top of search results, these ads are strategically placed to maximize visibility and boost brand awareness. By capturing attention in high-traffic areas, they help ensure your brand stands out from the competition while driving traffic directly to your Brand Store.

Sponsored Brands video campaigns

Sponsored Brands Video ads are a highly effective way to showcase your products using engaging video content, typically between six and forty-five seconds. These videos autoplay directly within shopping results, appearing for select keywords relevant to your product. They highlight product benefits, features, or use cases in a dynamic format that immediately captures attention and drives higher engagement. When shoppers click on your video ad, they’re taken directly to the product detail page, where they can learn more and make a purchase.

These ads are strategically placed within search results, often mid-page, where they stand out among the competition. Sponsored Brands Video ads have a dedicated ad placement and auction, meaning they don’t compete with other self-service ad campaigns you may already be running. This unique placement, combined with their ability to attract attention in crowded product categories, makes them a powerful tool for gaining visibility, building interest, and converting potential customers.

How to set up a Sponsored Brands ad

Setting up a Sponsored Brands ad is a straightforward process you don’t need to have much technical knowledge of how to do it:

Step 1: Log in to your Amazon Advertising account

Begin by accessing your Amazon Advertising account. Navigate to the Sponsored Brands section of the ad console to initiate the ad creation process.

Step 2: Choose your campaign objective

Select the objective that best aligns with your advertising goals, such as building brand awareness, driving traffic, or increasing sales.

Step 3: Set your advertising budget and bidding strategy

Determine your daily budget (according to your marketing) and pick a bidding strategy that suits your campaign needs. You can also set a total campaign budget if necessary.

Step 4: Design and structure your campaign

Choose between keyword or product targeting and select the relevant products to feature. Next, create an eye-catching headline and upload a brand logo or video if applicable.

Step 5: Optimize your keywords and targeting

Perform keyword research to identify search terms relevant to your audience. Use broad, phrase, and exact match types to capture a variety of customer searches.

Step 6: Review and launch your ad

Double-check your campaign setup, ensuring all elements are accurate and optimized. Once satisfied, submit your ad for review and, upon approval, start running your campaign.

Here’s a more in-depth look at how to set up Amazon Sponsored Brand ads easily:

Amazon Ads Sponsored Display – Step-by-Step Tutorial

Amazon sponsored brand ads strategies 

Making Sponsored Brand ads successful is not just a matter of clicking the right settings, but an over-arching effort. Here are some strategies to help you leverage brand ads on Amazon in an effective way:

Invest in your brand

Building a strong and recognizable brand is crucial for the success of your Sponsored Brand ads on Amazon. When customers are familiar with and trust your brand, they are more likely to click on your ads and make purchases. A well-established brand creates a lasting impression, increasing customer loyalty and repeat business.

Investing in your brand through high-quality visuals, engaging content, and consistent messaging not only enhances your campaign performance but also improves your credibility in a competitive marketplace. This can lead to higher click-through rates (CTR), better conversion rates, and a stronger return on investment (ROI) for your advertising campaigns.

Optimize keywords

Optimizing keywords is essential because it ensures your sponsored brand ads are reaching the most relevant audience. By carefully selecting and refining keywords, you improve the likelihood of your ads appearing in search results where potential customers are actively looking for products or services like yours.

This targeted approach minimizes wasted ad spend by reducing impressions from irrelevant searches, while simultaneously increasing the chances of clicks from qualified leads. Essentially, you want to choose keywords that are as highly relevant as possible to the product as possible, to minimize the tradeoff between visibility and relevance.

Make sure your KPIs are in order

You know what they say: if you don’t measure it, you won’t know if it’s working. Make sure your KPIs, your marketing strategy, and your business goals are fully aligned, and make sure you’re looking at the right performance metrics:

• Sales: Track your conversion rate and sales volume to measure the direct impact of your sponsored brand ads.

• CPC: Measure your cost per click (CPC) to determine the efficiency of your ad spend.

• CTR: Monitor your click-through rate (CTR) to see how many people are clicking on your ads compared to the total number of impressions.

• ACoS: Track your Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) to understand the ratio of your ad spend to the sales generated, helping you measure the profitability of your ads campaigns.

Use A/B testing

A/B testing is an effective way to experiment with different elements of your Sponsored Brand ads, such as headlines, visuals, or targeting advertising strategies. By creating two versions of the same ad and measuring their performance against each other, you can gather valuable insights into what resonates best with your target audience and make necessary adjustments accordingly.

Use negative keywords

Negative keywords allow you to exclude specific terms from triggering your sponsored brand ads, preventing wasted spend on irrelevant searches. By adding negative keywords, you can further refine your targeting and ensure your ads appear to the most relevant audience. This can also help improve your ad’s overall performance by reducing its cost-per-click (CPC) and increasing its click-through rate (CTR).

Sponsored Products vs Sponsored Brands

While very similar, Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brand ads serve different purposes, and display essential differences. Here are some of the most important ones you should know:

Feature/Aspect	Sponsored Products	Sponsored Brands
Purpose	Focused on promoting individual product listings to drive direct sales.	Aimed at increasing brand awareness by showcasing your brand logo, custom headline, and multiple products.
Placement	Appears within search results, product detail pages, and other relevant shopping placements.	Typically displayed at the top or middle of search results, and sometimes on product detail pages.
Targeting Options	Keyword targeting, product targeting, and automatic targeting based on Amazon algorithms.	Keyword targeting and product targeting with more emphasis on brand visibility.
Creative Customization	Limited customization; ad displays product image, title, price, and rating.	Offers more creative flexibility, allowing for custom headlines, a brand logo, and up to three products.
Metrics Focus	Primarily measures direct sales performance and cost-per-click (CPC).	Focuses on impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and driving traffic to product detail pages or stores.
Best For	Sellers aiming to maximize sales for specific products.	Brands looking to grow long-term recognition and cross-sell multiple products.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When setting up Amazon Sponsored Brand Ads, it’s crucial to approach the process strategically to ensure success. Without proper planning and attention to detail, it’s easy to make mistakes that can impact results and waste ad spend. Here are three common pitfalls to watch out for:

1. Ignoring keyword research

Proper keyword research forms the foundation of a successful campaign. Many advertisers make the mistake of either using overly generic keywords or not including enough relevant, long-tail relevant keywords. This can result in poorly targeted ads that fail to reach the right audience or generate conversions.

2. Overlooking ad creative quality

A sponsored brand ad is often the first impression a potential customer has of your brand, so whether you focus on static images or video creatives, make sure they are very good. Neglecting to invest effort into creating compelling, visually appealing, and informative ad creatives can reduce the effectiveness of the campaign. Poor-quality ads may fail to attract clicks or communicate your brand message.

3. Not monitoring and adjusting campaigns

One of the most significant mistakes is setting up a campaign and leaving it unchecked. Amazon ads require continuous monitoring to refine performance. Failing to adjust bids, test creatives, or update keyword lists based on performance data can lead to missed opportunities and diminished results.

It’s time to make your brand shine

Branding is more important than ever. With countless products vying for the attention of shoppers on Amazon, it’s essential to stand out and establish your brand identity.

Used right, Sponsored Brand ads are a powerful tool you can use to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your product listings or stores, and ultimately boost sales. Strategize, monitor, and optimize your campaigns to make your brand shine on the Amazon marketplace.

And if you’re looking for someone to help you with your Amazon marketing (be it Sponsored Brand ads or any other type of effort), do not hesitate to reach out to us. At Trivium Group, we have a collected experience of more than 30 years in running successful Amazon campaigns and helping businesses like yours launch, grow, and scale. Let’s get in touch to discuss your business goals and how we can help!

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