If you have been advertising on Amazon for a few years, you have likely noticed a troubling pattern. Sponsored Products, once the reliable workhorse of Amazon advertising, has become increasingly expensive. Costs have risen across nearly every category, and the competition for prime placements has intensified. In many verticals, advertisers are experiencing double-digit year-over-year increases in cost per click. The reality is that the same budget you committed last year now buys fewer clicks, fewer impressions, and often produces lower margins.
This escalation is not surprising. Amazon’s marketplace has matured, attracting thousands of new sellers every month. The more sellers that enter a category, the more pressure is placed on Sponsored Products auctions. What used to be an affordable bottom funnel channel is now a crowded battlefield where maintaining visibility requires aggressive bidding. For brand owners and agencies who must protect profit margins, this is a serious challenge. The question is no longer how to simply compete at the bottom of the funnel. The question is how to scale in a way that builds long-term growth even as costs rise.
That is where Amazon DSP comes in. Unlike Sponsored Ads, which focus mainly on on-Amazon search placements, DSP gives brands the power to expand beyond the marketplace. With DSP you can reach audiences on Amazon-owned properties such as Prime Video and Twitch, as well as across premium third-party websites and apps. More importantly, you can use Amazon’s first-party shopping data to target audiences with precision that few other platforms can match.
DSP allows you to build a funnel that starts with awareness, nurtures consideration, and drives conversion, while also creating opportunities for loyalty and repeat purchases. Instead of only harvesting demand at the bottom of the funnel, DSP lets you create demand at the top. By running display, video, and streaming television campaigns, you not only reach new audiences but also feed your Sponsored Ads campaigns with fresh, high-intent traffic. The result is a more balanced strategy that reduces reliance on increasingly expensive clicks and positions your brand for sustainable growth.
If that sounds like the shift you are trying to make, this guide is for you, especially for brand owners, agencies, and performance marketers who want to go beyond incremental Sponsored Ads optimizations.
2. Amazon DSP Basics (Concise) At its core, Amazon DSP is Amazon’s demand side platform, a programmatic advertising tool that lets brands buy display, video, and streaming television inventory using Amazon’s unrivaled shopper data. Unlike Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands, which are auctioned within Amazon’s search and product detail pages, DSP operates on a much broader canvas. It gives advertisers the ability to build campaigns that reach people both inside and outside of the marketplace while still relying on Amazon’s purchase signals.
The key difference is focus. Sponsored Ads are primarily bottom funnel and reactive. They catch the shopper who is already searching and ready to compare products. DSP, on the other hand, is proactive. It allows you to identify likely buyers before they even begin searching and to influence their consideration set across the web. That distinction turns DSP into a tool for creating demand rather than simply capturing it.
DSP campaigns can appear across Amazon-owned and operated properties such as Prime Video, Twitch, IMDb, Fire TV, and the Amazon homepage. Beyond that, they extend into a vast network of third-party sites and apps through Amazon Publisher Services and open exchange inventory. This reach means your message can follow high-intent audiences wherever they spend time online, from streaming entertainment to news sites to lifestyle blogs, all while staying grounded in Amazon’s first-party data.
For many advertisers, this is the unlock. Instead of fighting for visibility only at the point of search, you gain the ability to influence the full customer journey, from early awareness to repeat purchase. It is this expanded scope that makes DSP such a powerful complement to Sponsored Ads and a critical growth lever for brands that want to scale.
3. When Should You Use Amazon DSP?
Understanding what DSP is only gets you so far. The real question for most advertisers is when it actually makes sense to add it to the mix. The answer often comes down to brand size and budget. DSP is not built for testing with a few hundred dollars a month. Because it operates on a cost per thousand impressions model and requires enough scale to optimize, most brands see reliable results when they can commit a few thousand dollars per month at a minimum. Larger brands often dedicate five figures or more, which allows for a full funnel approach and meaningful measurement. If your ad spend is still modest or you are heavily focused on single SKU launches, Sponsored Ads may be the better immediate tool.
Budget is only one part of the equation. The other is your position in the funnel. Sponsored Ads remain essential for conversion at the bottom of the funnel, but DSP comes into play when you want to influence earlier stages. If you are trying to build brand awareness among audiences who have not yet searched for your category, DSP’s streaming and display inventory can plant the seed. If you want to nurture shoppers who have looked at competitor pages or visited your store but have not purchased, DSP can retarget them with relevant creative. And if retention and repeat purchase are priorities, DSP can remind past buyers to replenish or explore adjacent products in your catalog.
4. Amazon DSP Targeting & Audience Options: A Practical View
Knowing when DSP makes sense is only the first step. The real power lies in who you can reach and how precisely you can reach them. Sponsored Ads give you placement around keywords, but DSP opens the door to audiences that are defined by behavior, interest, and purchase intent. This is where Amazon’s first-party data becomes a true differentiator, because you are not guessing about what people might want. You are building campaigns around what they are actually browsing, searching, and buying.
One of the most widely used options is in market audiences. These are shoppers who have recently shown intent in a specific category, which means they are actively considering a purchase. Targeting in market segments allows you to place your brand in front of people who may not have typed your keywords into the search bar yet, but who are already signaling intent through browsing and shopping activity.
Lifestyle and demographic audiences expand the scope further. With these, you can reach groups of shoppers who align with broader identities and behaviors, such as fitness enthusiasts, pet owners, or parents with young children. These segments are especially effective for awareness campaigns when the goal is to introduce your brand to people who are likely to be interested in your category but are not yet actively searching for it.
At the other end of the spectrum is ASIN retargeting, which is more surgical. This option lets you re-engage shoppers who viewed your product detail page, visited your store, or even interacted with competitor listings. Because these audiences have already demonstrated intent, they sit closer to conversion, and well-timed messaging can nudge them back toward purchase.
For brands that want to go beyond the built-in segments, DSP also supports custom audiences. These can be built from your own customer data, such as email lists uploaded in a privacy-safe way, or they can be generated through Amazon Marketing Cloud by combining multiple behaviors into one rule-based audience. This flexibility allows you to tailor targeting to the unique shape of your business and to build funnels that are not only broad but also deeply relevant.
5. Amazon DSP vs. Sponsored Ads: Which One Wins When?
After exploring how targeting works in DSP, the natural question is how it stacks up against the advertising formats most brands already know. Sponsored Ads remain the backbone of Amazon advertising for good reason. They are efficient, keyword-driven, and designed to capture shoppers at the exact moment of search. DSP, by contrast, is programmatic and impression-based. It reaches people earlier in the journey and follows them across different channels. Neither replaces the other. The real value comes from knowing when each format wins and how they can work together.
Here is a straightforward view of how they compare:
Aspect
Sponsored Ads
Amazon DSP
Primary KPI
Return on Ad Spend, CPC
New to Brand Sales, Reach, DPVR
Funnel Strength
Conversion
Awareness, Consideration, Retention
Placements
On Amazon search and product detail pages
Amazon-owned properties plus third-party sites and apps
Buying Model
CPC Auction
CPM programmatic
Budget Fit
Flexible for Smaller Spend
Scales best with higher monthly investment
The distinction becomes clear when you line them up side by side. Sponsored Ads excel at bottom funnel efficiency, where the key metric is return on ad spend and the goal is to convert shoppers who are already searching. DSP shines in the stages above that, where awareness, consideration, and retention require broader reach, higher frequency, and storytelling formats such as video. Because DSP uses cost per thousand impressions rather than cost per click, it can cover larger audiences at scale, while Sponsored Ads remain precise and transactional.
6. DSP in Action: The Funnel Playbook
The real strength of DSP emerges when you place it inside a funnel strategy. Sponsored Ads do the heavy lifting at the moment of conversion, but DSP allows you to guide shoppers through every stage of their journey. By layering awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention, you create a system that not only drives immediate sales but also builds long-term equity for the brand.
At the top of the funnel, awareness campaigns set the stage. This is where streaming and over-the-top video ads shine. With Prime Video and Fire TV inventory, along with lifestyle and demographic audience targeting, you can place your message in front of shoppers who may not yet know your brand but fit the profile of likely buyers. The goal here is not instant sales but recognition and recall. A well-crafted thirty-second spot or a lifestyle-driven display ad can introduce your product in a way that feels native to the shopper’s world, planting the seed that will pay off later.
The middle of the funnel belongs to consideration. This is where DSP’s retargeting capabilities take over. When someone views your product detail page, explores your Brand Store, or even checks out a competitor’s listing, DSP can follow up with reminders and educational messaging. A short video that highlights a unique benefit or a responsive eCommerce creative that shows real-time pricing can bring that shopper back into the fold. The objective is to stay present during the decision-making process and tip the balance in your favor.
As shoppers move closer to purchase, conversion campaigns become the focus. Dynamic ads that refresh automatically with live price, reviews, and availability extend across Amazon and into trusted third-party environments. These ads keep your products visible wherever the shopper may be browsing. By aligning creatives with urgency, such as limited-time offers or seasonal bundles, you can drive the final click that completes the sale.
The funnel does not end there. Retention and loyalty are where DSP closes the loop. By re- engaging past buyers at key replenishment intervals or introducing them to complementary products, you build repeat purchase behavior. Re-engagement campaigns can remind a customer that it is time to reorder or suggest a premium version of the product they already trust. Over time, this stage transforms one-time shoppers into long-term brand advocates, giving you a compounding return on every DSP investment.
7. KPIs & Measurement Framework
Running DSP without clear measurement is like driving without a dashboard. The impressions may look impressive and the creative may feel sharp, but without the right key performance indicators, you cannot tell if the campaigns are truly moving the business forward. Each stage of the funnel has its own set of metrics, and success depends on tracking them with precision.
At the awareness stage, volume and visibility are the focus. Impressions and unique reach show how many people are being exposed to your brand. For campaigns that include video or streaming, view completion rate becomes a critical measure of how engaging the creative is. In some cases, brand lift studies can be layered in to measure changes in recognition or consideration. These numbers may not show direct sales, but they build the foundation that fuels later stages.
The mid-funnel shifts attention to engagement. Here, click-through rate helps gauge whether audiences are interested enough to take the next step. Detail page views provide a more reliable signal, showing how many shoppers moved from seeing an ad to actively exploring your products. When measured correctly, these indicators reveal whether awareness is translating into consideration.
At the lower funnel, performance sharpens around conversion. Return on ad spend remains a central metric, but it should be paired with new-to-brand sales to distinguish between repeat buyers and incremental customers. This distinction matters because DSP is not only about generating orders but also about expanding your customer base. Looking only at return on ad spend can mask whether the campaigns are driving long-term value.
Attribution can complicate measurement if it is not handled carefully. DSP uses impression-based models, so attribution windows are broader than click-based Sponsored Ads. A shopper might see a streaming video, research competitors over the next week, and only then convert after a display reminder. This lag is natural, but it often leads advertisers to underestimate the true contribution of awareness and mid-funnel efforts. The common pitfall is applying the same expectations you use for Sponsored Ads to DSP. To avoid this, align your attribution windows with the buying cycle of your product and resist the temptation to judge campaigns solely on last click performance. The goal is not only to measure immediate returns but to capture the layered impact of DSP across the full journey.
8. Best Practices for Creatives & Messaging
Metrics are important, but they only tell half the story. The other half comes from the quality of your creative and the clarity of your message. With DSP, you have more options than ever, ranging from static banners to high-impact video. Static display ads are useful for retargeting because they deliver product information quickly and efficiently. Video, whether fifteen or thirty seconds long, excels at awareness and mid-funnel engagement because it has the power to capture attention and create an emotional connection. The best campaigns blend the two, using video to spark interest and static display to follow through with timely reminders.
Copy plays a critical role in both formats. Compliance with Amazon’s advertising policies is a given, but compliance alone is not enough. Good messaging also needs to tap into emotional triggers. A line that calls out convenience, quality, or savings can turn a passive viewer into an active shopper. The most effective copy is concise, clear, and supported by strong visuals. It should give shoppers a reason to pause and consider your brand at the exact moment they encounter it.
Even with polished creatives, no one gets it perfect on the first try. That is why A/B testing is not optional. Testing different headlines, visuals, and calls to action allows you to see what resonates best with your audience. Sometimes the smallest changes—a product image with lifestyle context versus one on a plain background can lead to meaningful differences in engagement and conversion. Building a culture of testing ensures that your campaigns evolve with your audience rather than becoming stale.
9. Common Mistakes to Avoid
While DSP opens powerful opportunities, many advertisers stumble over the same pitfalls. A common error is audience overlap. Without careful planning, multiple line items can target the same group of shoppers, which inflates frequency, wastes impressions, and drives up costs without adding reach. To prevent this, map audiences clearly and use exclusions to avoid duplication.
Another misstep is neglecting frequency caps. DSP makes it easy to keep your brand in front of a shopper, but unchecked repetition can create fatigue. Seeing the same ad five or six times in a single day not only wastes impressions but risks creating negative sentiment. Thoughtful frequency capping ensures your message stays fresh and welcome rather than intrusive.
A final mistake is ignoring post-campaign reporting. Too often, advertisers look only at surface metrics like impressions and return on ad spend without digging deeper into how audiences moved through the funnel. Post-campaign analysis, especially when paired with tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud, reveals incremental gains and helps refine future strategy. Skipping this step means repeating the same mistakes instead of learning and improving.
10. Getting Started with DSP (Action Steps)
For brands ready to take the next step, the question is how to get started. Amazon offers DSP as a managed service, but that option typically requires a higher minimum spend and gives you less hands-on control. Many advertisers choose to work with agencies that have self-service access. This path often provides more flexibility, better optimization, and expertise that accelerates results. The right choice depends on your budget, your goals, and the level of control you want over campaign management.
Speaking of budget, expectations need to be realistic. DSP works best with a consistent monthly investment at a scale that allows for meaningful testing and optimization. Smaller brands may begin with a few thousand dollars per month, while larger brands often allocate five- or six-figure budgets to fully leverage the platform. The key is not the starting number but the ability to sustain and scale over time. One-off campaigns rarely deliver the long-term insights that make DSP so powerful.
Fortunately, the tools and resources available today make onboarding easier than ever. Amazon provides extensive documentation, agencies often share case studies, and analytics platforms can integrate with DSP data to streamline reporting. With the right setup, you are not just launching ads. You are building a system that supports every stage of the customer journey and ties directly into your broader Amazon strategy.
11. Summarizing Everything
Amazon DSP is not a replacement for Sponsored Ads. It is the missing piece that completes the funnel. Sponsored Ads capture demand at the moment of search, while DSP creates and nurtures that demand through awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention. Together, they give brands the reach to attract new shoppers, the precision to guide decisions, and the efficiency to grow profitably even as competition intensifies.
If you have felt the squeeze of rising costs in Sponsored Products or struggled to find incremental growth, DSP is the lever that can move your brand forward. By pairing disciplined targeting with creative that resonates, measuring with the right KPIs, and avoiding common mistakes, you can turn DSP into a system that compounds results month after month.
The next step is simple. If you are serious about scaling and want a strategy tailored to your business, book a consultation call with our team. We will walk you through the exact steps to put DSP into action, build a funnel that works for your category, and ensure your advertising dollars are driving both immediate sales and long-term growth.
Amazon DSP in Action: A Complete Funnel Playbook for Brands Ready to Scale
1. Introduction: Why Amazon DSP Matters Now
If you have been advertising on Amazon for a few years, you have likely noticed a troubling pattern. Sponsored Products, once the reliable workhorse of Amazon advertising, has become increasingly expensive. Costs have risen across nearly every category, and the competition for prime placements has intensified. In many verticals, advertisers are experiencing double-digit year-over-year increases in cost per click. The reality is that the same budget you committed last year now buys fewer clicks, fewer impressions, and often produces lower margins.
This escalation is not surprising. Amazon’s marketplace has matured, attracting thousands of new sellers every month. The more sellers that enter a category, the more pressure is placed on Sponsored Products auctions. What used to be an affordable bottom funnel channel is now a crowded battlefield where maintaining visibility requires aggressive bidding. For brand owners and agencies who must protect profit margins, this is a serious challenge. The question is no longer how to simply compete at the bottom of the funnel. The question is how to scale in a way that builds long-term growth even as costs rise.
That is where Amazon DSP comes in. Unlike Sponsored Ads, which focus mainly on on-Amazon search placements, DSP gives brands the power to expand beyond the marketplace. With DSP you can reach audiences on Amazon-owned properties such as Prime Video and Twitch, as well as across premium third-party websites and apps. More importantly, you can use Amazon’s first-party shopping data to target audiences with precision that few other platforms can match.
DSP allows you to build a funnel that starts with awareness, nurtures consideration, and drives conversion, while also creating opportunities for loyalty and repeat purchases. Instead of only harvesting demand at the bottom of the funnel, DSP lets you create demand at the top. By running display, video, and streaming television campaigns, you not only reach new audiences but also feed your Sponsored Ads campaigns with fresh, high-intent traffic. The result is a more balanced strategy that reduces reliance on increasingly expensive clicks and positions your brand for sustainable growth.
If that sounds like the shift you are trying to make, this guide is for you, especially for brand owners, agencies, and performance marketers who want to go beyond incremental Sponsored Ads optimizations.
2. Amazon DSP Basics (Concise)
At its core, Amazon DSP is Amazon’s demand side platform, a programmatic advertising tool that lets brands buy display, video, and streaming television inventory using Amazon’s unrivaled shopper data. Unlike Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands, which are auctioned within Amazon’s search and product detail pages, DSP operates on a much broader canvas. It gives advertisers the ability to build campaigns that reach people both inside and outside of the marketplace while still relying on Amazon’s purchase signals.
The key difference is focus. Sponsored Ads are primarily bottom funnel and reactive. They catch the shopper who is already searching and ready to compare products. DSP, on the other hand, is proactive. It allows you to identify likely buyers before they even begin searching and to influence their consideration set across the web. That distinction turns DSP into a tool for creating demand rather than simply capturing it.
DSP campaigns can appear across Amazon-owned and operated properties such as Prime Video, Twitch, IMDb, Fire TV, and the Amazon homepage. Beyond that, they extend into a vast network of third-party sites and apps through Amazon Publisher Services and open exchange inventory. This reach means your message can follow high-intent audiences wherever they spend time online, from streaming entertainment to news sites to lifestyle blogs, all while staying grounded in Amazon’s first-party data.
For many advertisers, this is the unlock. Instead of fighting for visibility only at the point of search, you gain the ability to influence the full customer journey, from early awareness to repeat purchase. It is this expanded scope that makes DSP such a powerful complement to Sponsored Ads and a critical growth lever for brands that want to scale.
3. When Should You Use Amazon DSP?
Understanding what DSP is only gets you so far. The real question for most advertisers is when it actually makes sense to add it to the mix. The answer often comes down to brand size and budget. DSP is not built for testing with a few hundred dollars a month. Because it operates on a cost per thousand impressions model and requires enough scale to optimize, most brands see reliable results when they can commit a few thousand dollars per month at a minimum. Larger brands often dedicate five figures or more, which allows for a full funnel approach and meaningful measurement. If your ad spend is still modest or you are heavily focused on single SKU launches, Sponsored Ads may be the better immediate tool.
Budget is only one part of the equation. The other is your position in the funnel. Sponsored Ads remain essential for conversion at the bottom of the funnel, but DSP comes into play when you want to influence earlier stages. If you are trying to build brand awareness among audiences who have not yet searched for your category, DSP’s streaming and display inventory can plant the seed. If you want to nurture shoppers who have looked at competitor pages or visited your store but have not purchased, DSP can retarget them with relevant creative. And if retention and repeat purchase are priorities, DSP can remind past buyers to replenish or explore adjacent products in your catalog.
4. Amazon DSP Targeting & Audience Options: A Practical View
Knowing when DSP makes sense is only the first step. The real power lies in who you can reach and how precisely you can reach them. Sponsored Ads give you placement around keywords, but DSP opens the door to audiences that are defined by behavior, interest, and purchase intent. This is where Amazon’s first-party data becomes a true differentiator, because you are not guessing about what people might want. You are building campaigns around what they are actually browsing, searching, and buying.
One of the most widely used options is in market audiences. These are shoppers who have recently shown intent in a specific category, which means they are actively considering a purchase. Targeting in market segments allows you to place your brand in front of people who may not have typed your keywords into the search bar yet, but who are already signaling intent through browsing and shopping activity.
Lifestyle and demographic audiences expand the scope further. With these, you can reach groups of shoppers who align with broader identities and behaviors, such as fitness enthusiasts, pet owners, or parents with young children. These segments are especially effective for awareness campaigns when the goal is to introduce your brand to people who are likely to be interested in your category but are not yet actively searching for it.
At the other end of the spectrum is ASIN retargeting, which is more surgical. This option lets you re-engage shoppers who viewed your product detail page, visited your store, or even interacted with competitor listings. Because these audiences have already demonstrated intent, they sit closer to conversion, and well-timed messaging can nudge them back toward purchase.
For brands that want to go beyond the built-in segments, DSP also supports custom audiences. These can be built from your own customer data, such as email lists uploaded in a privacy-safe way, or they can be generated through Amazon Marketing Cloud by combining multiple behaviors into one rule-based audience. This flexibility allows you to tailor targeting to the unique shape of your business and to build funnels that are not only broad but also deeply relevant.
5. Amazon DSP vs. Sponsored Ads: Which One Wins When?
After exploring how targeting works in DSP, the natural question is how it stacks up against the advertising formats most brands already know. Sponsored Ads remain the backbone of Amazon advertising for good reason. They are efficient, keyword-driven, and designed to capture shoppers at the exact moment of search. DSP, by contrast, is programmatic and impression-based. It reaches people earlier in the journey and follows them across different channels. Neither replaces the other. The real value comes from knowing when each format wins and how they can work together.
Here is a straightforward view of how they compare:
The distinction becomes clear when you line them up side by side. Sponsored Ads excel at bottom funnel efficiency, where the key metric is return on ad spend and the goal is to convert shoppers who are already searching. DSP shines in the stages above that, where awareness, consideration, and retention require broader reach, higher frequency, and storytelling formats such as video. Because DSP uses cost per thousand impressions rather than cost per click, it can cover larger audiences at scale, while Sponsored Ads remain precise and transactional.
6. DSP in Action: The Funnel Playbook
The real strength of DSP emerges when you place it inside a funnel strategy. Sponsored Ads do the heavy lifting at the moment of conversion, but DSP allows you to guide shoppers through every stage of their journey. By layering awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention, you create a system that not only drives immediate sales but also builds long-term equity for the brand.
At the top of the funnel, awareness campaigns set the stage. This is where streaming and over-the-top video ads shine. With Prime Video and Fire TV inventory, along with lifestyle and demographic audience targeting, you can place your message in front of shoppers who may not yet know your brand but fit the profile of likely buyers. The goal here is not instant sales but recognition and recall. A well-crafted thirty-second spot or a lifestyle-driven display ad can introduce your product in a way that feels native to the shopper’s world, planting the seed that will pay off later.
The middle of the funnel belongs to consideration. This is where DSP’s retargeting capabilities take over. When someone views your product detail page, explores your Brand Store, or even checks out a competitor’s listing, DSP can follow up with reminders and educational messaging. A short video that highlights a unique benefit or a responsive eCommerce creative that shows real-time pricing can bring that shopper back into the fold. The objective is to stay present during the decision-making process and tip the balance in your favor.
As shoppers move closer to purchase, conversion campaigns become the focus. Dynamic ads that refresh automatically with live price, reviews, and availability extend across Amazon and into trusted third-party environments. These ads keep your products visible wherever the shopper may be browsing. By aligning creatives with urgency, such as limited-time offers or seasonal bundles, you can drive the final click that completes the sale.
The funnel does not end there. Retention and loyalty are where DSP closes the loop. By re- engaging past buyers at key replenishment intervals or introducing them to complementary products, you build repeat purchase behavior. Re-engagement campaigns can remind a customer that it is time to reorder or suggest a premium version of the product they already trust. Over time, this stage transforms one-time shoppers into long-term brand advocates, giving you a compounding return on every DSP investment.
7. KPIs & Measurement Framework
Running DSP without clear measurement is like driving without a dashboard. The impressions may look impressive and the creative may feel sharp, but without the right key performance indicators, you cannot tell if the campaigns are truly moving the business forward. Each stage of the funnel has its own set of metrics, and success depends on tracking them with precision.
At the awareness stage, volume and visibility are the focus. Impressions and unique reach show how many people are being exposed to your brand. For campaigns that include video or streaming, view completion rate becomes a critical measure of how engaging the creative is. In some cases, brand lift studies can be layered in to measure changes in recognition or consideration. These numbers may not show direct sales, but they build the foundation that fuels later stages.
The mid-funnel shifts attention to engagement. Here, click-through rate helps gauge whether audiences are interested enough to take the next step. Detail page views provide a more reliable signal, showing how many shoppers moved from seeing an ad to actively exploring your products. When measured correctly, these indicators reveal whether awareness is translating into consideration.
At the lower funnel, performance sharpens around conversion. Return on ad spend remains a central metric, but it should be paired with new-to-brand sales to distinguish between repeat buyers and incremental customers. This distinction matters because DSP is not only about generating orders but also about expanding your customer base. Looking only at return on ad spend can mask whether the campaigns are driving long-term value.
Attribution can complicate measurement if it is not handled carefully. DSP uses impression-based models, so attribution windows are broader than click-based Sponsored Ads. A shopper might see a streaming video, research competitors over the next week, and only then convert after a display reminder. This lag is natural, but it often leads advertisers to underestimate the true contribution of awareness and mid-funnel efforts. The common pitfall is applying the same expectations you use for Sponsored Ads to DSP. To avoid this, align your attribution windows with the buying cycle of your product and resist the temptation to judge campaigns solely on last click performance. The goal is not only to measure immediate returns but to capture the layered impact of DSP across the full journey.
8. Best Practices for Creatives & Messaging
Metrics are important, but they only tell half the story. The other half comes from the quality of your creative and the clarity of your message. With DSP, you have more options than ever, ranging from static banners to high-impact video. Static display ads are useful for retargeting because they deliver product information quickly and efficiently. Video, whether fifteen or thirty seconds long, excels at awareness and mid-funnel engagement because it has the power to capture attention and create an emotional connection. The best campaigns blend the two, using video to spark interest and static display to follow through with timely reminders.
Copy plays a critical role in both formats. Compliance with Amazon’s advertising policies is a given, but compliance alone is not enough. Good messaging also needs to tap into emotional triggers. A line that calls out convenience, quality, or savings can turn a passive viewer into an active shopper. The most effective copy is concise, clear, and supported by strong visuals. It should give shoppers a reason to pause and consider your brand at the exact moment they encounter it.
Even with polished creatives, no one gets it perfect on the first try. That is why A/B testing is not optional. Testing different headlines, visuals, and calls to action allows you to see what resonates best with your audience. Sometimes the smallest changes—a product image with lifestyle context versus one on a plain background can lead to meaningful differences in engagement and conversion. Building a culture of testing ensures that your campaigns evolve with your audience rather than becoming stale.
9. Common Mistakes to Avoid
While DSP opens powerful opportunities, many advertisers stumble over the same pitfalls. A common error is audience overlap. Without careful planning, multiple line items can target the same group of shoppers, which inflates frequency, wastes impressions, and drives up costs without adding reach. To prevent this, map audiences clearly and use exclusions to avoid duplication.
Another misstep is neglecting frequency caps. DSP makes it easy to keep your brand in front of a shopper, but unchecked repetition can create fatigue. Seeing the same ad five or six times in a single day not only wastes impressions but risks creating negative sentiment. Thoughtful frequency capping ensures your message stays fresh and welcome rather than intrusive.
A final mistake is ignoring post-campaign reporting. Too often, advertisers look only at surface metrics like impressions and return on ad spend without digging deeper into how audiences moved through the funnel. Post-campaign analysis, especially when paired with tools like Amazon Marketing Cloud, reveals incremental gains and helps refine future strategy. Skipping this step means repeating the same mistakes instead of learning and improving.
10. Getting Started with DSP (Action Steps)
For brands ready to take the next step, the question is how to get started. Amazon offers DSP as a managed service, but that option typically requires a higher minimum spend and gives you less hands-on control. Many advertisers choose to work with agencies that have self-service access. This path often provides more flexibility, better optimization, and expertise that accelerates results. The right choice depends on your budget, your goals, and the level of control you want over campaign management.
Speaking of budget, expectations need to be realistic. DSP works best with a consistent monthly investment at a scale that allows for meaningful testing and optimization. Smaller brands may begin with a few thousand dollars per month, while larger brands often allocate five- or six-figure budgets to fully leverage the platform. The key is not the starting number but the ability to sustain and scale over time. One-off campaigns rarely deliver the long-term insights that make DSP so powerful.
Fortunately, the tools and resources available today make onboarding easier than ever. Amazon provides extensive documentation, agencies often share case studies, and analytics platforms can integrate with DSP data to streamline reporting. With the right setup, you are not just launching ads. You are building a system that supports every stage of the customer journey and ties directly into your broader Amazon strategy.
11. Summarizing Everything
Amazon DSP is not a replacement for Sponsored Ads. It is the missing piece that completes the funnel. Sponsored Ads capture demand at the moment of search, while DSP creates and nurtures that demand through awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention. Together, they give brands the reach to attract new shoppers, the precision to guide decisions, and the efficiency to grow profitably even as competition intensifies.
If you have felt the squeeze of rising costs in Sponsored Products or struggled to find incremental growth, DSP is the lever that can move your brand forward. By pairing disciplined targeting with creative that resonates, measuring with the right KPIs, and avoiding common mistakes, you can turn DSP into a system that compounds results month after month.
The next step is simple. If you are serious about scaling and want a strategy tailored to your business, book a consultation call with our team. We will walk you through the exact steps to put DSP into action, build a funnel that works for your category, and ensure your advertising dollars are driving both immediate sales and long-term growth.
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