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Types of Amazon Ads: Sponsored Products, Brands, Display Explained
There are five main types of Amazon ads, and they are easier to tell apart than most guides make them sound. You have got Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV, and Amazon DSP. The first four you can launch yourself from inside your seller account. DSP is the programmatic one that reaches shoppers all over the web, not just on Amazon. Each does a different job. Some chase a fast sale, others build your name, and the whole game is matching the right one to what you are actually after.
TL;DR
• The five types of Amazon ads are Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV, and Amazon DSP. • Sponsored Products are the easiest entry point and tie most directly to sales. Any seller can run them, no Brand Registry needed. • Sponsored Brands, Display, and TV generally require Amazon Brand Registry, so you need a registered trademark. • Sponsored ads run on pay-per-click, so you set the budget. DSP is programmatic and has carried a much higher entry cost. • Amazon's ad business cleared roughly $56 billion in 2024, making it the third-largest ad platform behind Google and Meta. |
Why Choosing the Right Type of Amazon Ad Matters
Pick the wrong one and you torch budget on people who were never going to buy. Pick the right one and those same dollars turn into orders. That gap is the whole reason it pays to learn the different types of Amazon ads before you spend a cent, because every one of the types of Amazon ads is built for a different job.
A bit of context helps here. Amazon advertising is huge now, bigger than most people realize. Source:The company's ad business pulled in around $56 billion in 2024, which puts it third among ad platforms worldwide, behind only Google and Meta. And the people seeing these ads are not idly browsing. They came to Amazon to buy something. That intent is why these formats convert so well, and why picking the right one is not a small decision.
The Main Types of Amazon Ads
Before we go format by format, here is the quick map. The table below lines up all five types of Amazon ads against what you actually care about: what the ad looks like, how it finds people, what you pay, and whether Brand Registry is a gate. Skim it, then keep reading for how each of these types of Amazon ads plays out in real campaigns.
Ad Type | What It Is | Targeting | Pricing | Brand Registry? |
Sponsored Products | Single product listings | Keyword + product | CPC | No |
Sponsored Brands | Brand logo, headline, multiple products | Keyword + product | CPC | Yes |
Sponsored Display | On and off Amazon, retargeting | Audience + product | CPC / vCPM | Yes |
Sponsored TV | Streaming TV (Fire TV, Twitch, etc.) | Audience | CPM | Yes |
Amazon DSP | Programmatic, on and off Amazon | Audience (full funnel) | CPM | Yes (open to non-sellers) |
Amazon Sponsored Ads (The PPC Family)
Sponsored ads are the pay-per-click formats. When sellers say "Amazon PPC," this is what they mean. You pay only when someone actually clicks, nothing for the impression. Four of the five types of Amazon ads live in this family: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and the newcomer, Sponsored TV.
Sponsored Products
These are the workhorse of the types of Amazon ads. A Sponsored Product ad promotes one item, slots right into search results and onto competitor product pages, and looks almost exactly like a normal listing, which is part of why shoppers click it. Best part? Any seller can run them. No Brand Registry, no trademark, no hoops. That is why nearly everyone starts here. If you only ever run one format, make it this one. It points straight at sales, and it hands the algorithm the conversion data it cares about most.
Sponsored Brands
You know those banner ads stretched across the top of search results, the ones with a logo, a line of copy, and a few products lined up? Those are Sponsored Brands. They are about getting remembered, not just getting a single click. Use them when you want shoppers to walk away knowing your name, not just owning one of your products. The catch is Brand Registry: you need a registered trademark to unlock them, so resellers are out.
Sponsored Display
Sponsored Display is your retargeting tool. Someone looked at your product, maybe even added it to the cart, then wandered off. Sponsored Display follows them, on Amazon and out across other sites and apps, and shows them your product again. That reminder is often the thing that finally tips them into buying. It targets by audience and behavior rather than keywords, and like Sponsored Brands, it usually wants you in Brand Registry first.
Sponsored TV
This one is new, and genuinely worth a look. Sponsored TV puts your brand on streaming, places like Fire TV and Twitch. The big shift: Amazon made it self-serve with no minimum spend, so you no longer need an enterprise budget to run a TV ad. For a smaller brand that wants the reach of television without writing a television-sized cheque, it is one of the more interesting types of Amazon ads to land in the last couple of years.
Amazon DSP (Programmatic Advertising)
Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is the heavyweight among the types of Amazon ads. It is programmatic, meaning it buys display, video, and audio placements automatically across Amazon's own real estate, Fire TV, Twitch, IMDb, Prime Video, plus thousands of outside sites and apps. Sponsored ads go after keywords. DSP goes after people, targeting them by how they shop, what they like, and how they have interacted with you before.
Two things make DSP its own animal. One, you do not even have to sell on Amazon to use it. Two, it has long been pricey to get into: managed-service campaigns have historically needed a minimum somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars, though Amazon keeps loosening self-serve access. So DSP is not your first campaign. It is where you go when you are ready for serious brand building and proper full-funnel retargeting.
Which Type of Amazon Ad Should You Use?
Match the ad to the goal. That really is how the pros decide which of the types of Amazon ads to run, and it cuts through most of the confusion. Run down this list and your answer usually jumps out.
• Want direct sales right now? Sponsored Products. Start here, always.
• Building brand awareness? Sponsored Brands, so shoppers see your logo and range up top.
• Recovering shoppers who didn't buy? Sponsored Display, for retargeting on and off Amazon.
• Chasing reach on streaming? Sponsored TV, now that it is self-serve with no minimum.
• Running full-funnel at scale? Amazon DSP, once you have the budget and the strategy to use it.
Here is the thing though: almost no one who is winning sticks to a single one of the types of Amazon ads. They stack them. Sponsored Products mops up ready-to-buy demand while Sponsored Brands and DSP work the top of the funnel. The real challenge is not picking a favorite. It is keeping every one of them profitable at the same time.
Getting the Most From Your Amazon Ads
Whichever of the types of Amazon ads you end up running, the same basics decide whether they make money or lose it. Good keyword research feeds the sponsored formats. A tight grip on budget keeps your cost of sale sane. And watching the numbers, ACoS, click-through rate, conversion rate, tells you what to pour more into and what to switch off.
The thing most sellers miss is connection. Your ad data sits in one tool, your retail data in another, and the two never talk. So you cannot see that a campaign is bleeding money because the product quietly went low on stock, or because a competitor just undercut your price. That blind spot is what atom11 set out to fix. Its retail-aware Amazon advertising software pulls inventory, pricing, competition, and rank into a single view, so your bids actually respond to what is happening on the shelf. Run out of stock? Spend pulls back. Already ranking for a term? You stop overpaying to win it twice.
Conclusion
The most effective Amazon advertising campaigns are not limited to one form of advertisement but incorporate various elements such as Sponsored Products, Brands, Display, Video, and DSPs to reach consumers across all stages of their purchase funnel. The more forms of advertisements you use, the more important it becomes to have greater visibility and control. Solutions that consolidate data about campaign effectiveness, retail signals, and optimizations will be beneficial here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the different types of Amazon ads?
Five, mainly: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Sponsored TV, and Amazon DSP. The first four are self-serve formats you can switch on from your seller account. DSP is the programmatic platform, and it reaches people on and off Amazon.
Which type of Amazon ad is best for beginners?
Sponsored Products. They are the simplest to set up, the most widely used, and they tie directly to sales, which makes them the natural first step before you branch into the other types of Amazon ads.
Do I need Brand Registry to run Amazon ads?
Not for Sponsored Products, which any seller can run. Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and Sponsored TV generally require enrollment in Amazon Brand Registry, so you need a registered trademark to unlock them.
How much do Amazon ads cost?
Sponsored ads run on a pay-per-click model, so you set your own budget and only pay when someone clicks. There is no fixed minimum. Amazon DSP, by contrast, has historically carried a managed-service minimum in the tens of thousands of dollars, though self-serve access has been expanding.
Which types of Amazon ads should I combine?
Most brands layer them. Sponsored Products capture ready-to-buy demand, Sponsored Brands build awareness, Sponsored Display and DSP retarget shoppers who did not convert, and Sponsored TV widens reach. Running them together covers the full buyer journey.
End of Brief
Prepared by Department X, Growisto | Confidential
