Amazon Ad Types & Formats: Sponsored, DSP, and Streaming TV Explained

In 2025, Amazon’s advertising has become a primary source for driving sales for Amazon brand owners. However, the number of advertisement options available on Amazon often confuses the advertisers. Currently, Amazon has 5 primary ad types and for sellers, brands, and agencies, understanding the difference between Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP, and the newly launched Amazon ads TV is essential to compete and scale.

This guide breaks down all major Amazon ad types, formats, costs, targeting options, and strategic applications. By the end of this blog, you’ll have a tactical playbook to align your Amazon PPC strategy with 2025’s landscape.

What Counts as an Amazon Ad Type 

Amazon ad types and campaigns refer specifically to paid media formats that involve bidding, audience targeting, and performance tracking. These formats function as auction-based placements within the Amazon Advertising Console or Amazon DSP. They generate impressions and clicks in real-time auctions and are designed to drive measurable marketing outcomes such as conversions, awareness, or retargeting.

The recognized types of Amazon advertising include Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, Amazon streaming TV ads, and Amazon DSP. 

The 5 Core Amazon Ad Types in 2025

The current Amazon advertising ecosystem supports five major types of amazon PPC campaigns. 

1. Sponsored Products 
2. Sponsored Brands
3. Sponsored Display
4. Sponsored TV 
5. Amazon DSP 

From high-intent product searches to streaming TV Amazon ads’ impressions, each format plays a unique role in the customer journey. Advertisers must understand which type maps to their campaign goal, budget, and available creative assets.

1. Sponsored Products 

Amazon Sponsored Product ad dominates Amazon PPC budgets because they drive direct sales and rank-building. These native ads blend into search results and product pages, making them the first touchpoint for most shoppers.

Sponsored Products ads appear in:

• Top-of-search Amazon ads placements
• Product detail pages
• Category and carousel placements

In Amazon ads Sponsored Products, advertisers can choose any from the 3 available targeting options:

• Automatic targeting, where Amazon uses listing and behavioral data
• Manual targeting, including keywords, ASINs, and categories
• Audience targeting (new in 2025), Reach specific shopper segments based on demographics, lifestyle interests, and purchase behaviors, similar to Sponsored Display audience strategies but optimized within Sponsored Products.

Amazon advertising sponsored products run on a CPC model and typically cost about $1 per click but it may rise or decrease depending on category competition. Campaigns optimized with relevant keywords and Buy Box control can yield 4x to 5x ROAS. Conversion rates range between 9% and 12%, and this format often accounts for 60% to 80% of total ad spend on Amazon.

Best practices for Sponsored Products include:

• Launching auto campaigns to harvest converting search terms
• Migrating winning terms into manual campaigns with exact match
• Using placement multipliers to boost top-of-search exposure
• Targeting competitor ASINs to steal market share

This ad type is ideal for advertisers focused on performance metrics like ACoS, conversion rate, and sales velocity.

2. Sponsored Brands 

Sponsored Brands allow sellers to showcase brand identity alongside multiple ASINs or a Store page. These ads appear prominently at the top of search results and serve to engage shoppers higher in the funnel.

There are three Amazon ads sponsored brands formats:

• Product Collection: A brand logo, custom headline, and up to three ASINs
• Store Spotlight: Promotes different subpages of your Amazon Store
• Sponsored Brands Video: Autoplay video ads placed in search results

To use Amazon advertising sponsored brands, you must be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry and have a live Store with at least three subpages.

While the average CPC for Amazon sponsored brands ads is 20% to 30% higher than Sponsored Products, they deliver stronger upper- and mid-funnel performance. Sponsored Brands Video frequently drives 2x the click-through rate of static ads. Campaigns often see 60% to 75% of traffic come from new-to-brand shoppers.

Use Sponsored Brands when you want to:

• Tell your brand story visually
• Cross-sell related products
• Guide traffic to high-converting Store subpages
• Defend branded search terms

For Sponsored Brands Video, always add captions since most users view without sound. Amazon’s autoplay format helps drive attention, especially for product demos and feature callouts.

3. Sponsored Display 

Amazon Sponsored Display ad empowers advertisers to expand reach beyond Amazon.com using dynamic targeting. It’s the only Sponsored ad type with access to both on-Amazon and external display inventory. 

Amazon ads Sponsored Display shows up:

• On product detail pages
• Within Amazon carousels
• On external apps, websites, and Twitch

Amazon advertising Sponsored Display offers two main targeting methods:

• Contextual targeting: Target by product, category, or competitor ASINs
• Custom audiences: Advertisers can import audiences from Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) to build precise remarketing and prospecting strategies.
• Audience targeting (expanded in 2025): Reach shoppers based on prior behavior such as product views, purchase history, demographics, lifestyle segments, and now AMC-powered custom and lookalike audiences.

Pricing can be CPC or vCPM depending on your campaign objective. Amazon auto-generates creatives using your product’s title, image, star rating, and price. You can also upload custom image creatives or, in some marketplaces, use Sponsored Display Video in beta.

Recommended use cases:

• Retarget shoppers who viewed but didn’t buy
• Protect your product pages by targeting your own ASINs
• Reach competitor traffic with ASIN-based conquesting
• Prospect with in-market and lifestyle audience segments

Optimize Sponsored Display campaigns by segmenting retargeting and prospecting. Layer in promotions like coupons or deals for urgency, and shorten your audience lookback windows to 7 or 14 days to stay relevant.

4. Sponsored TV 

Amazon ads streaming TV is Amazon’s most recent ad innovation, offering video placement across Prime Video, Fire TV, Freevee, and Twitch. What sets Sponsored TV apart is that it’s fully self-serve, has no minimum spend, and doesn’t require a Seller Central account.

Ad specs for Amazon Streaming ads TV include:

• 15–30 second non-skippable video format
• CPM pricing model
• Targeting by interest, genre, or audience behavior

You can run Amazon ads streaming TV campaigns even if you don’t sell on Amazon. It’s ideal for:

• DTC brands seeking awareness on connected TVs
• New product launches that need visual storytelling
• Seasonal campaigns for events like Prime Day or Black Friday

It’s best paired with other video formats like Sponsored Brands Video or DSP OTT to create a full-funnel video strategy.

Sponsored TV is especially effective for upper-funnel impact, delivering large-screen reach with Amazon audience data precision without needing to commit to DSP.

5. Amazon DSP 

Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is Amazon’s enterprise-grade programmatic platform for brands seeking full-funnel and cross-channel reach. Unlike Sponsored Ads, which live only in the Amazon ads Console, DSP Amazon ads allow advertisers to reach audiences across Amazon properties and the open web.

You can run:

• Display ads on and off Amazon
• Streaming TV (OTT) on Fire TV, IMDb, Twitch
• Audio ads on Amazon Music and Alexa-enabled devices
• Video ads embedded within third-party publisher content

Amazon DSP campaigns are best suited for:

• Brands with higher ad budgets (managed DSP starts at ~$50K)
• Advertisers wanting granular audience segmentation
• Brands with creative assets like videos, rich media, or branded banner ads Amazon
• Retargeting campaigns across devices and placements

Targeting is highly customizable. You can use Amazon’s first-party signals like purchase history, browsing behavior, Prime membership status, or interests. You can also build lookalike audiences or suppress audiences based on past purchases.

DSP Amazon advertising campaigns support deeper measurement integrations with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), enabling brands to measure cross-channel attribution, incrementality, and lifetime value. Self-serve DSP advertising Amazon is available in some markets, and agencies with Amazon certification can access it with more flexible budgets.

DSP is the only Amazon ad format that offers:

• Cross-site and off-Amazon reach
• Advanced frequency capping
• Sequential storytelling
• Geo-targeting across devices

It’s a must-use channel for mature advertisers looking to scale, expand brand visibility, or integrate advanced Amazon ads into a broader omnichannel media strategy.

What Amazon Ad Type Should You Use?

Choosing the right Amazon ad type on the Amazon ads portal depends on your campaign goal, available creative assets, and advertising budget. The decision is not one-size-fits-all. Different combinations of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display ad Amazon, Sponsored TV, and DSP campaigns solve different objectives along the Amazon ads funnel. Below is a goal-driven framework to help advertisers pick the optimal mix in 2025.

Goal-Based Ad Type Selection:

• Drive sales for a new ASIN

Use Sponsored Products for ranking, SB Video for storytelling, and Sponsored Display ads Amazon (retargeting) to recover non-converting traffic.

• Increase brand recall and visibility

Use Sponsored TV for upper-funnel impact, DSP Display for scalable awareness, and SB Product Collection to introduce multiple ASINs.

• Retarget traffic from your DTC site or Amazon views

Use Sponsored Display (audience segments) or Amazon DSP remarketing with shopping signal-based targeting.

• Cross-sell products to existing customers

Use Sponsored Brands Collection to promote product bundles and SD contextual targeting to reach category-relevant pages.

• Run omnichannel brand campaigns

Use Amazon DSP for programmatic reach, Sponsored TV for CTV awareness, and SD interest-based segments to reinforce across channels.

• Operate under $1K monthly ad budget

Use Sponsored Products ads Amazon for efficiency and SB Amazon Sponsored Video ads (low CPC, high CTR) to stretch reach on minimal spend.

• Run campaigns without any video assets

Use SP for performance, SB Collection for mid-funnel navigation, and SD Product Targeting for defense and conquesting.

Creative Specs Quick Reference (2025)

Before launching any Amazon campaign, advertisers need to ensure their creative assets meet Amazon’s 2025 ad spec standards. These specs affect eligibility, delivery, and performance. Understanding the technical and creative requirements of each ad type helps improve approval rates and campaign impact.

Creative Requirements by Ad Format:

The table below will help you understand the creative requirements of each ad type: 

Ad Type	Format	Duration
Sponsored Brands Video	Silent autoplay	6–45 seconds
Sponsored TV	Non-skippable	15–30 seconds
Sponsored Display (Custom)	Display ads with optional lifestyle creative
Amazon DSP Video Ads / Audio Ads	OTT: Full-screen videoAudio Ads: Audio spot with companion Amazon ads banner/image	OTT: 15–30 sec videoAudio: 10–15 sec

Each of these type of Amazon ads requires adherence to Amazon’s ad policy and asset quality standards. Failing to meet size, duration, or caption requirements can lead to delivery issues or rejection. 

Measurement That Matters in 2025 for Amazon Ad Types

Amazon advertisers who are good at Amazon store advertising don’t just launch campaigns, they measure, analyze, and optimize. Amazon has expanded its analytics stack in 2025 to include New-To-Brand (NTB) metrics, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Amazon Attribution, and Marketing Stream. These tools offer actionable insights into shopper behavior, time-based performance, and funnel impact.

Key Measurement Tactics for Amazon Online Ads in 2025:

• New-To-Brand (NTB) Tracking

Monitor NTB shoppers in Amazon Ads Console and analyze granular attribution paths in Amazon Marketing Cloud to gauge upper-funnel efficiency.

• Brand Lift Studies

Run Amazon Brand Lift surveys for Sponsored TV and Amazon DSP campaigns to measure shifts in awareness and recall across segments.

• Retargeting Performance

Use Sponsored Display reporting to evaluate audience engagement, ROAS by view window, and CTR uplift from retargeted traffic.

• Cross-Campaign Attribution

Connect Sponsored Brands → Sponsored Products → conversion trails in AMC, especially useful for multi-touch journeys across ad types.

• Dayparting & Amazon Ads Placement Insights

Use DSP or AMC to analyze performance by time-of-day or day-of-week to optimize ad scheduling for high-intent periods.

• Off-Amazon Measurement

Enable Amazon Attribution for Facebook, Google, or email traffic driving to Amazon listings, and monitor real-time data with Marketing Stream for faster campaign adjustments.

Understanding these measurement tools helps advertisers prove return on ad spend, scale what works, and eliminate inefficiencies across channels and audiences.

Conclusion

Running Amazon store ads the right way means knowing how to use each format to your advantage. Our team at AMZDUDES understands how to get results with everything from Sponsored Products to DSP and Sponsored TV. We manage campaigns that grow visibility, boost sales, and scale your brand with data-backed strategies. If you want a team that knows the Amazon ecosystem inside out, we at AMZDUDES have been doing the same for Amazon brands. Book a free strategy call now and see what we can do for your business.