"Amazon Marketing Services", or AMS, is a name many sellers still search for, but Amazon retired it years ago. The same tools now sit under Amazon Ads, managed through the advertising console or the Campaign Manager in Seller Central.
The name matters less than the structure. Each ad type does a different job, and brands that scale profitably use them together rather than putting everything into one.
The core ad types
Sponsored Products
Ads for individual products, shown in search results and on product pages. They're priced per click and targeted by keyword or by product.
Job: capture shoppers who are already searching for what you sell. For most brands this is 60–80% of ad spend, and it's where profitability is won or lost. See our Sponsored Products bidding guide for how to set bids from your margins.
Sponsored Brands
Banner-style ads at the top of search showing your logo, a headline and several products, or a video. They can send shoppers to your Brand Store or a product page. They need Brand Registry.
Job: win the most visible placement, introduce your range and build branded searches. Sponsored Brands video ads often have the best click-through rates in an account, because movement stands out in a page of static images.
Sponsored Display
Ads that retarget shoppers who viewed your products, or that appear on competitor and complementary product pages, both on and off Amazon.
Job: bring back shoppers who didn't buy and defend your own product pages. Start small and measure carefully, because Display results vary more by category than the other ad types.
Amazon DSP and Sponsored TV
The DSP (demand-side platform) buys display and video ads programmatically across Amazon and partner sites, using Amazon's shopper data. Sponsored TV puts video ads on streaming services such as Prime Video and Fire TV.
Job: awareness at scale. These make sense once a brand has a strong conversion engine on Amazon. For most brands under roughly $100k a month, the money is better spent on the three Sponsored ad types first.
How the pieces fit together
Think of it as a funnel:
| Stage | Shopper mindset | Ad types |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Doesn't know your brand | Sponsored Brands video, Sponsored TV, DSP |
| Consideration | Comparing options | Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display on competitor pages |
| Purchase | Ready to buy | Sponsored Products (exact and phrase) |
| Loyalty | Bought before | Sponsored Display retargeting, branded Sponsored Brands |
A healthy account spends most at the bottom, where returns are measurable, and uses the upper stages to feed it. Whether upper-funnel spend is working should show up as more branded searches and lower TACoS over time.
Building a strategy that scales
- Get the listing right first. Ads multiply conversion rate, good or bad. A listing converting at 6% makes every click twice as expensive as one converting at 12%.
- Structure campaigns for control. Separate campaigns by product, match type and goal (ranking, profit, defense), so each budget answers one question.
- Defend your brand terms. Bid on your own brand name and ASINs. It's cheap, and if you don't, competitors will.
- Set goals per campaign. A ranking campaign can run above break-even ACoS. A profit campaign shouldn't.
- Review weekly. Search terms, placements, budgets and bids all drift. A weekly routine catches waste before it compounds.
Mistakes we see most often
- Spending heavily on Display or DSP before Sponsored Products is profitable.
- One giant auto campaign for the whole catalog, with no negative keywords.
- Judging everything on ACoS and ignoring the organic sales that ads create.
- Running out of budget by midday, so the best evening shoppers never see the ads.
- Advertising products that are about to go out of stock.
Do you need a tool or an agency?
Amazon's own console is enough to run good campaigns. Bid tools help with rules at scale, but they only automate decisions you've already made. If you don't have the time to review search terms and placements each week, that's when it's worth bringing in help.
At AMZAMP, every management plan includes full PPC management across Sponsored Products, Brands and Display, with a weekly report showing exactly what changed and why.