Amazon Marketing Services Agency Toolkit

A Reference Guide for Agency Partners

December 2017
AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

Table of Contents

AMS Overview 3
Placements, Targeting and Landing Pages 4
Eligibility 5
Setting Up Your Account 6
Registration and Setup 6
Account Maintenance—Users and Brands 8
Planning Your Program 10
Pricing and Bidding 10
Budgeting and Payment Solutions 10
Choosing Your Products 14
Search on Amazon 14
Building Your Campaigns 15
Campaign Setup Basics 15
Sponsored Products 15
Headline Search Ads 20
Product Display Ads 23
Create an Amazon Store 29
Campaign Review and Approval 31
Ad Creation Guidelines 31
Managing Your Campaigns 34
Campaign Requirements 34
Best Practices 35
Helpful Features and Tips 42
Reporting 45
Reporting Basics 45
Reporting by Product 47
Additional Resources 50
Amazon Stores 50
Help 52
Glossary 53

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AMS Overview
This comprehensive guide has been created to aid agency partners and advertisers with Amazon Marketing
Services (AMS) onboarding. The goal of the toolkit is to help agency partners quickly become proficient with
AMS products and services and familiar with best practices. This document will be updated on a regular
cadence, so please make sure to reach out to your Amazon agency contact for the most updated version.

Sponsored Products
Sponsored Products are keyword-targeted ads
that appear within Amazon.com search results
and take shoppers to a product detail page.

Headline Search Ads

Headline Search Ads are keyword-targeted ads
that appear above Amazon.com search results and
take shoppers to any Amazon page that showcases
at least 3 eligible ASINs that are in-stock.

Product Display Ads

Product Display Ads are shopper interest and
product targeted ads that appear on relevant
Amazon product detail pages and take shoppers to
a product detail page.

Amazon Stores
Amazon Stores is a free, self-service solution
that lets brands showcase their selection, convey
their value proposition, and establish a dedicated
presence on Amazon.

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Placements, Targeting and Landing Pages

Sponsored Product Ads Headline Search Ads Product Display Ads

Promote product assortment in

Drive sales efficiencies of key products Target shoppers based on interests or
Value Proposition prominent position above search
within and alongside search results product viewing activity
results

• Product ASIN
Targeting Method Keyword Keyword • Product Category
• Shopper Interest Category

Max # of Keywords,
• 750 Targeted Products
Targeted Products,
1,000 1,000 • # Product Categories varies
and Categories
• 221 Interest Categories
Allowed

Keyword Match Broad, Phrase, Exact, Negative

Broad, Phrase, and Exact N/A
Types Phrase, and Negative Exact

• Product Detail Pages (Desktop &

• Search Results Page - ATF, BTF, • Top of Search Results Page Mobile)
& Inline (Mobile) (Desktop & Mobile) • Read All Reviews Page
Placement
• Product Detail Pages (Desktop) • Mobile App • Offer Listings Page
• Mobile App • Mobile App
• Email

Primary image/logo/copy leads to

one of the following:
• Amazon Stores or
Landing Page ASIN Product Detail Page • Custom Landing Page or ASIN Product Detail Page
• Custom Amazon URL
Three featured ASINs lead to:
• ASIN Product Detail Page

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Product Display Ad Placements:
Placement Name Location Size AMS Exclusive

AMZN AMS Detail Right Product Detail Page - Below Buy Box Multiple X
AMZN ATF RAR Read All Reviews Page 300x250
AMZN ATF Offer Stripe Detail Page - Offer Listings Page 980x55
AMZN ATF Hero Quick Promo (HQP) Detail Page - Under Product Description 650x130
AMZN BTF Detail Center Promo Detail Page BTF 970x250
AMZN BTF Mobile Web Detail Page Mobile Web Detail Page BTF 414x125
AMZN BTF Mobile App Detail Page Mobile App Detail Page BTF 414x125
Automated Email- Abandoned Cart- ATF Email- Abandoned Cart 610x120
Automated Email- Recommendations-ATF Email- Product Recommendations 610x120
Automated Email- Viewing History-ATF Email- Viewing History 610x120

Eligibility
Amazon Marketing Services is limited to Amazon vendors only. Amazon vendors sell product directly to
Amazon, which Amazon sells, fulfills, and ships. Third-Party sellers are companies that sell on the Amazon
website but manage their own catalog listings, prices, and inventory (including fulfillment if they do not
utilize FBA – Fulfillment by Amazon) of items that they list. Please refer to the Getting Started Checklist for
more information on how to distinguish vendors from Third-Party sellers.

Note: Amazon Third-Party sellers do have access to Sponsored Products via Seller Central and may bid on
keywords to serve ads in the same placements as Amazon vendors.

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AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

Setting Up Your Account

Registration and Setup
Access to existing accounts
If your client already has access to AMS, please ask them to provide access by adding you as a new user
to the account (refer to the Account Maintenance section of this document.)

Register new accounts / register new brand on behalf of your client

• Go to https://ams.amazon.com and click on the “Register” link in the top black navigation bar.
• Select the fourth radio button option, “I want to request an invitation to represent a vendor”.

• You may be asked to create a new Amazon account. Please create an account using your work email
address.

• Please identify your client and enter your client’s contact information. If you do not know your client’s
vendor code with Amazon, please obtain this information from your client in order for our teams to
approve your request in a timely fashion.

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• You will need to accept the Amazon Marketing Services Agreement before proceeding. These terms
may be viewed online: http://ams.amazon.com/terms.
• You have the option of adding additional brands before submitting all requests.
(Note: All reporting and billing for Amazon Marketing Services is serviced at an account level.
Therefore you may need to create an Amazon Marketing Services account for each brand you are
working with.)

• Account approval requests may take up to 48 hours.

Notes on Account Setup:

Many large Amazon vendors will have multiple brands they will want to promote through Amazon
Marketing Services. The optimal setup will depend on several factors, including the mapping of the various
brands to marketing budgets, and how closely the brands correlate in terms of potential keywords. The
most common setup is to map each brand to an AMS account. Each AMS account will support one
Amazon Store. In addition, each AMS account will generate one invoice.

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AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

Account Maintenance—Users and Brands

Managing Users
Adding/deleting users, as well as assigning privileges, are actions performed at the account level, under
the ‘Manage Users’ option in the main dropdown menu.

There are 2 types of Amazon Marketing Services users:

Editor: This role has write access and can create, edit, and pause / terminate campaigns.

Admin: This role has all of the privileges of the Editor, and can also add / remove users and change
payment methods. Admins also receive all campaign related e-mails, including campaign approval and
rejection notices. (If your client grants you access to their existing AMS account, please ensure that Admin
access is granted to you, as their agency contact.)

Add a New User: Click on the “Invite a new user” button, fill out all required fields and assign the
appropriate user access level.

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Delete User: Click on the “Delete” link associated with the user whose access is being revoked in the
Manage Users page.

Modify User Privileges: Select the Access dropdown associated with the user whose privileges are being
modified. Change the user access, and click on the “Save” button which will appear in the AMS User
Interface (UI).

Managing Brands
Add a Brand
When you want to add a new brand, use the “Add or remove brands” function. When you request a brand
to be added to your AMS account, an email notification will be sent to the chosen brand contact. This
person will need to click through the link in the email they receive to grant you access. Approval requests
may take up to 48 hours.

Remove a Brand
If there are brands you no longer want attached to your AMS account, simply use the “Remove Brand”
function. This will remove them from your AMS account. You will not be able to remove yourself if you are
the only user on the account.

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AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

Planning Your Program

Pricing and Bidding
Pricing
Amazon Marketing Services follows a cost-per-click (CPC) model. The cost of the click is established using
an auction in which advertisers set a bid for every keyword they assign. Every time a shopper conducts a
search, advertisers engage in an auction that uses the different bids assigned to the keyword.

The determination of the auction winner as well as the winning CPC is based on a Second Price Auction
model but factors in other variables such as expected click-through rate as well as relevancy. Thus, the
auction exhibits more complex logic than simply having the highest bidder pay the second highest CPC
bid. Note: the auction winner will never pay more than their own bid for the given keyword.

In scenarios with only one auction participant (i.e., no bidding competition), the advertiser is charged the
minimum price of the auction, which varies depending on the auction and where we show the ad. Amazon
Marketing Services uses a cost-per-click, auction-based pricing model. We recommend you set the
maximum cost-per-click you are willing to pay.

Campaigns cannot bid against each other in an auction if they belong to the same account in AMS.
Campaigns will compete if they reside in different AMS accounts. If an account has two campaigns with
the same keyword, Amazon will choose the campaign that has a greater likelihood to win the auction.

Two or more identical ads can show up in the same search results page or Product Detail Page. AMS does
not currently prevent ads from winning auctions on the same page.

Amazon Marketing Services has tools in place designed to filter out users who abuse the click-through
system. While Amazon does not disclose specifics, known bots are filtered out and Amazon is constantly
monitoring for new ones. Beyond blocking on the front end, Amazon reviews clicks up to three days in the
past for additional validation. Suspected fraudulent impressions, clicks, and charges will be removed by
Amazon’s automated detection.

Budgeting & Payment Solutions

AMS Budgeting Basics
All budgets are set at the campaign level upon campaign creation. Each campaign budget should reflect
the total amount the user is willing to spend for that particular campaign. Available budget types are as
follows:

• Sponsored Product Ads: Daily budget.

• Headline Search Ads: Daily budget or campaign flight budget.
• Product Display Ads: Daily budget or campaign flight budget.
For an “always on” presence across all units, Daily Budget is recommended, as it does not require an end
date and the campaign will run continuously.

Sponsored Products:
The budget the user enters for Sponsored Products campaigns reflects a daily budget. The daily budget
reflects the maximum amount the user is willing to spend per day.

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 AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

• If budget is exhausted before the day ends, a notification in red will appear in the campaign status
(status (i.e., “Daily budget spent”). Refer to budget recommendations (on top of the Advertising
Campaigns page) to help avoid exhausting budget (more below).
• Daily Budgets may be increased to ensure ads continue to be served.

Budget Recommendations for Sponsored Products

NEW
To help you keep your Sponsored Products campaigns from running out of budget and boost overall
campaign performance, we now provide budget recommendations within Campaign Manager. Highlights
include:

• Real-time updates capture when a campaign is close to running out of budget or has run out of budget.
• Advertisers can click on the notification and will be taken to a page that features all of their out-of-
budget campaigns, along with recommended new budgets.

Budget recommendations are based on the previous spend of the campaign, the projected traffic on
Amazon, and the time of the year. As such, they are updated based on changes to the campaign itself, as
well as changes to traffic on Amazon.

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AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

Headline Search Ads/Product Display Ads:

There are two budget options offered for Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads: daily and
campaign flight.

Daily budgets for these ad units are the same as those described above for Sponsored Products.

For campaign flight budgets, the budget entered reflects the budget for the duration of the specified flight.
Please note that campaigns may be paused when they reach 90+% of budget levels, to protect advertisers
from overruns.

For Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads, the following pacing options are available for campaign
flight budgets:
• Run Campaign As Quickly As Possible: Amazon will continually run the campaign until the campaign
budget is exhausted. This pacing option is recommended for advertisers who want to maximize their
return. This setting cannot be adjusted after creating the campaign.
• Spread Campaign Evenly Over Its Duration: Amazon will evenly spread out the campaign budget
over the designated duration. For example, a campaign with a $100 budget running for 10 days will be
given $10 to spend on the first day. If, at the end of the first day, only $9.10 out of the $10 was spent,
the next day’s budget will be $10.10. This setting cannot be adjusted after creating the campaign.

When pacing for a campaign flight budget is set to ‘spread campaign evenly over its duration’, the
campaign flight budget is evenly distributed across the campaign’s length. Should the campaign spend too
quickly at any given point during a day, an ‘Out of Hourly Budget’ status will display and the campaign will
temporarily pause for up to one hour to help preserve the available budget for the rest of the day. The user
can increase the campaign flight budget, but the system does not currently support budget decreases for
launched Headline Search Ads or Product Display Ads campaigns that use campaign flight budgets.

Budget Controls
All budget controls are within the AMS User Interface (UI). There are currently no budget controls at the
AMS account level; budgets can be adjusted only at the campaign level (specific to each Sponsored
Products, Headline Search Ads, or Product Display Ads campaign).
• All budgets are set during campaign set-up within the AMS UI. Once the campaign has launched, daily
budgets can be increased or decreased, while campaign flight budgets can only be increased.

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• If budgets need to be pulled, the user may pause or terminate live campaigns, which are effective
immediately (i.e., spend will be immediately paused).
• All AMS accounts are invoiced at the end of every calendar month. Our current payment terms are net
30 days.

Payment Solutions
Amazon charges only for the clicks accrued. That means that if a given campaign does not spend all of its
allocated budget over the chosen timeframe (i.e., daily or campaign flight), Amazon does not charge for the
full budget amount. Amazon only charges for the amount accrued on shopper clicks.

Vendors within the US have three payment options:

1. Credit card: Personal and corporate credit cards are allowed, up to a certain spend threshold.
2. Invoicing: Invoicing is an invite-only option limited to vendors that meet specific criteria, which varies
per country.
3. Deduct From Payment (DFP): DFP is an automated payment method eligible to all direct advertiser
accounts, allowing them to pay their advertising costs with their retail proceeds. This method helps
reduce payment friction, increase efficiency, and automate collection efforts. DFP is not available to third
parties who manage payments for their clients’ advertising accounts.

Invoices are issued the first week of every calendar month, and Amazon’s invoice payment terms are net 30
days. They can be paid by check or money wire.

DFP billing statements are issued on a periodic basis once a deduction has been successfully been made
from the retail balance owed by Amazon.

To access billing history and view accumulating charges for the calendar month, visit the ‘Billing History’
section within the AMS UI. Any ‘Accumulating Charges’ in the current invoicing cycle reflects spend that has
been accrued.

Billing statements show a status of “Issued” until they have been paid. Once an invoice becomes
delinquent, the “Issued” status will update to the color red and you will receive a past due notification in
the UI. Billing statements are available for download within the AMS UI under ‘Billing History’. Invoices
are also emailed every month to the specified email addresses listed in the “Payment Settings” section.

! Payment failure
Invoice payment is past due. Please submit payment at your earliest convenience.

Changes to your bill-to details and/or Purchase Order numbers associated with the account can be made
via self-service in the ‘Payment Settings’ section. Any changes made in the ‘Payment Settings’ section
will be reflected on the next month’s invoice and are not retroactively applied.

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Auto Suspension – Invoicing
Amazon Marketing Services now provides more visibility on the health of your invoices by sending
notifications for upcoming invoice payments and reminders for overdue invoice payments. Amazon
Marketing Services will pause campaigns for accounts whose invoice payment is over 30 days late.
Campaigns will automatically resume upon receipt of payment for overdue invoices.

This feature is eligible to all advertisers who use invoicing as their payment method.

Insertion Orders
AMS does not support Insertion Order (IO) process because AMS is self-service and the relevant terms are
found in the Amazon Marketing Services Agreement. Please see Budget Controls for more information.

International Currency
Amazon Marketing Services supports budgets in local currency only. Instances of Amazon Marketing
Services are regionalized – hence a user cannot run UK or German campaigns in a US-based account.
All Amazon Marketing Services spend is also billed in local currency. If you are interested in running
campaigns in the UK, please register at ams.amazon.co.uk or for DE at ams.amazon.de.

Choosing Your Products

Amazon is committed to serving campaigns that drive cash flow and maintain our consumers’ trust by
ensuring that any item featured in an ad is in stock.

Before getting started on Amazon Marketing Services, obtain a list of ASINs your client sells on Amazon.
Through your client, ensure promoted ASINs have healthy Amazon inventory levels. If the ASINs are not in
stock, they will not be eligible for AMS promotion.

If an ASIN featured in a campaign goes out of stock mid-campaign, Amazon will automatically pause that
ASIN in the campaign until the ASIN is back in stock.

Product health can impact campaign performance. Consumers are more likely to trust products that are
‘proven’, meaning they have a high number of customer reviews and an average rating above 3.5.

ASINs must meet retail financial thresholds to be eligible for promotion through Amazon Marketing
Services. Please work with your Agency Contact to ensure this requirement is met.

Search on Amazon
Customers search on Amazon in very different ways from how they might search on a search engine.
Informational (e.g., “products to reduce wrinkles on my forehead”) or navigational queries (e.g., “Zappos”
or “Shopbop”) are, for the most part, not relevant on Amazon. The key is to assess the potential for a
keyword to capture product purchase intent.

The majority of searches on Amazon are product or brand-specific searches. While lifestyle and upper-
funnel terms may garner the highest volume on traditional search engines, Amazon volume is highest for
product and brand-level searches.

Superlatives and modifiers such as “best new paper towel” or “top 10 gifts for Mother’s Day” do not
deliver impressions since Amazon does not host comparative content in the way that search engines may.

Given the fairly limited supply of in-category keywords for certain verticals, the keyword selection
approach should also be focused on building relevant baskets of products.

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Building Your Campaigns
Campaign Setup Basics
Product Promotion by Ad Type

Sponsored Products Headline Search Ads Product Display Ads

One campaign promotes one One campaign promotes One campaign promotes only
or more ASINs. three or more ASINs. one ASIN.

Creative Assets
Sponsored Products Ads require no creative assets, as default creative pulls images directly from
Amazon Product Detail Pages. But, Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads do require additional
copy input which must abide by our guidelines (please refer to the Ad Creation Guidelines section).

Sponsored Product Ads Headline Search Ads Product Display Ads

Optional: JPG, GIF or PNG images, Required: Logo

Imagery None 400 pixels x 400 pixels, and the file JPG, GIF or PNG images, 100 pixels x
size <1MB 100 pixels, and the file size <1MB

Copy None Required: 50 character limit Required: 50 character limit

Sponsored Products
Building your Sponsored Products campaign is a 3-step process:
1. Select product(s) to advertise.
2. Set budget and campaign duration.
3. Add keywords and bids.

To target Sponsored Products campaigns to qualified shoppers, users have the option to select from
two targeting types in the Ad Builder: automatic targeting or manual targeting. For new AMS users, the
recommended strategy is to first start with automatic targeting and to then use the ‘Customer Search
Term Report’ insights to create and optimize a manual targeting campaign. Campaigns that use automatic
targeting will not receive priority over campaigns that use manual targeting and vice versa.

Notes on Targeting: Targeting type cannot be changed after a campaign is launched. To change a campaign
from automatic targeting to manual targeting, copy the campaign in the AMS UI, change the targeting
method to manual to add keywords and bids, and then submit for launch

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Automatic Targeting
Automatic targeting provides increased keyword coverage by leveraging Amazon’s extensive e-commerce
knowledge and allowing Amazon to find the best performing keywords.
• Create multiple Sponsored Products automatic targeting campaigns with like products promoted
together within a single campaign.
• Download a detailed ‘Customer Search Term Report’ after a few weeks.
• Understand which customer search terms drive the desired outcome from an impressions, conversion
rate, and/or sales point of view.
• Utilize the ‘Customer Search Terms Report’ to craft and refine Headline Search Ads campaigns and
manual-targeting Sponsored Products campaigns.

Manual Targeting
Manual targeting is a good choice for advertisers with more experience as it offers more control than
automatic targeting. With manual targeting, keywords may be selected from the suggested keywords list,
manually entered, or bulk uploaded via the template that is provided in the Ad Builder interface.

A few notes on Sponsored Products:

• For Sponsored Products campaigns with more than one promoted ASIN, keywords are automatically
matched to the relevant ASINs within the campaign.
• Sales data is provided in Sponsored Products at the ASIN level – please refer to the Reporting section.
• Leverage keyword lists provided by your Amazon contact and the Customer Search Term Report to
build Sponsored Products campaigns.
• Consider incorporating the suggested keywords surfaced in the Ad Builder.

Sponsored Products Keyword Match Types

Sponsored Product campaigns support the following match types:

Broad Match: This match type offers an ad broad traffic exposure. A customer’s search term will match if
it contains all the keyword terms or close variants. The customer search term can contain keywords in any
order. For the example keyword “baseball caps”:
• Eligible search terms are: “baseball caps”, “discount baseball cap”, “red caps for baseball”.
• Ineligible search terms are: “sports cap”, “Nike baseball”, “Adidas caps”.

Phrase Match: An ad may appear when a shopper searches for either the exact keyword or that keyword
with additional words before or after it. Phrase match is more restrictive than broad match. For the
example keyword “baseball caps”:

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 • Eligible search terms are: “lightweight baseball caps”,” baseball caps for girls”, “red baseball cap”.
• Ineligible search terms are: “cool caps for baseball”, “baseball nice caps”, “baseball caps”.

Exact Match: The customer’s search term must match the keyword exactly or close variations of the exact
term, in order for the ad to show. Exact match is the most restrictive match type. For the example keyword
“baseball caps”:
• Eligible search terms are: “baseball caps”, “baseball cap”.
• Ineligible search terms are: “red baseball caps”, “caps for baseball”, “baseball caps girls”.

Negative Phrase and Negative Exact: Negative phrase and negative exact are matching types that prevent
ads from being triggered by a certain search term (word or phrase). When a keyword is selected as
negative, AMS will not show the ad to shoppers searching for that keyword.

What are the Benefits of Using Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords help to make sure that ads are shown only to shoppers looking for the products that
are being advertised. This extra level of control can help reduce costs by excluding keywords where an
advertiser might not be driving the right outcomes (e.g., keywords that are generating clicks but are not
generating sales).

NEW Bulk Operations for Sponsored Products

This efficiency-boosting feature helps vendors create, manage, and optimize campaigns in bulk and at
scale, and is especially useful for agencies and large advertisers who manage multiple accounts.

Instead of making changes one at a time in the campaign dashboard, you can perform many changes at
once using a bulk spreadsheet.

To use the bulk operations feature, you will need to download a bulk spreadsheet to make changes to your
campaigns, and then upload the spreadsheet file for processing.

For example, suppose you’d like to change the keyword bids for several campaigns. Instead of manually
going into each campaign and modifying the keyword bids one by one, you can download a bulk file (.xlsx
or .xls file format), easily edit the bids for the keywords within the file, and then upload the file to implement
all the changes at once. The bulk file will allow you to make edits just as you would in the campaign
dashboard, including creating new campaigns, adding new keywords or targeted products, updating bids,
turning Bid+ on or off for your campaign, and increasing budgets.

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 The bulk spreadsheet is easy to download and simple to fill out. You can add new campaigns spanning
hundreds of keywords and targeted products concurrently.

• Take advantage of the .xlsx/.xls file format to use spreadsheet analysis tools to help you optimize your
campaigns.
• Editing your spreadsheet requires no internet connection. You can make your changes offline, then
upload your spreadsheet to the UI when you’re back online.

Sponsored Products “Add Variations” ASIN Picker

NEW
Sponsored Products has an ‘add variations’ button in Ad Builder, which allows advertisers to select all
eligible variations – including color, size, etc. – of an ASIN with a single click. (Ineligible items will be
excluded when the button is selected). This is particularly helpful when an advertiser has many variations
available, as it simplifies the selection process and alleviates manual effort.

This feature can be utilized when an advertiser is creating a Sponsored Products campaign; it is not
available when modifying an existing campaign.

NEW Add Ineligible ASINs to Sponsored Products and Product Display Ad Campaigns
This feature allows you to add ASINs to Sponsored Products and Product Display Ad campaigns
regardless of their financial threshold. When your campaign starts running, the ineligible ASINs will remain
paused until they become eligible for advertising. Once eligible, the ASINs will become enabled and be will
promoted in your campaigns.

You can check the eligibility of your ASINs in your campaign dashboard. To check ASIN status, select the
Sponsored Product or Product Display Ad campaign, then click the “Advertised Products” tab. A list of
ASINs under that campaign will be displayed with the ASIN status shown (enabled or paused).

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NEW Shared Placements for Sponsored Products
Sponsored Products has begun to participate in shared placements (ad placements on Amazon where
multiple ad programs can participate). Expanding placements to more diverse pages allows advertisers
to promote their products more widely, while also providing customers with more buying options. The
placements are open across all categories, and include the following:

Detail Page Customer Review Right

Detail Page Read All Reviews Search Skyscraper

Average Bidding Benchmarks for Sponsored Products

Category Avg. CPC Bid Category Avg. CPC Bid
Consumables PC $0.72
Baby $0.60 Pet Products $0.95
Beauty $0.79 Sports $0.55
Health and Personal Care $0.84 Sports Memorabilia $0.21
Grocery $1.22 Tires $0.12
Luxury Beauty $1.20 Tools $0.49
Personal Care Appliances $1.00 Toys $0.35
Hardlines Wireless $0.71
Automotive $0.37 Softlines
BISS $0.57 Apparel $0.31
Camera $0.78 Jewelry $0.35
Electronics $0.84 Luggage $0.51
Furniture $0.73 Shoes $0.28
Home $0.55 Watches $0.43
Home Entertainment $0.69 Media
Home Improvement $0.72 Digital Software $0.88
Kitchen $0.66 Digital Video Games $1.02
Lawn and Garden $0.60 DVD $0.19
Major Appliances $0.90 Music $0.10
Musical Instruments $0.51 Software $1.03
Office Products $0.67 Video -
Outdoors $0.57 Video Games $0.50

The table above provides the average winning cost-per-click bids for Sponsored Products during October 2017 in the US. Keep in mind that these are average winning bids for keywords that have
bids. These averages do not include the many relevant keywords that do not have bids and can be won with a below-average bid. These averages are provided to help guide bidding decisions, and
do not guarantee impressions nor clicks. It is recommended to not bid more on a keyword than one is willing to pay for a click.

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Headline Search Ads
Creating Headline Search Ads is a 5-step process:
1. Select ad landing page and choose ASINs to feature.
2. Set budget and campaign duration.
3. Add keywords and bids.
4. Add a headline.
5. Curate ASINs featured in the creative as needed.

Headline Search Ads Use Cases

Branded: Competitive defense and brand conquesting.
In-Category: Growing sales within a given ASIN’s category (e.g., Dell laptops within computer hardware).
Slightly out-of-category: Building a relevant basket among relevant shoppers (e.g., cat food with cat litter).
Out-of-category: Growing the size of your audience by increasing awareness across categories (e.g.,
chocolates with flower vases).

The landing page driven to by Headline Search Ads depends on which part of the creative placement
a shopper clicks. Amazon shoppers are taken to a product detail page if they click on any of the ASINs
shown on the right side of the creative. If an Amazon shopper clicks outside of these ASINs, then the
shopper is taken to an Amazon page that showcases at least three eligible ASINs that are in stock. This
includes Amazon Stores and custom landing pages, both of which can be built within the AMS UI.

Create an Amazon Store

Amazon Stores is a free self-service product that allows you to create an elevated customer-facing
experience in one branded, cohesive, multi-page setting. Amazon Stores can be linked through a Headline
Search Ad, which offers a high-profile way to drive traffic to your Store within Amazon. Please find
complete details on Amazon Stores on page 29.

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Create a Custom Landing Page
An ASIN picker is available to create custom landing pages seamlessly for Headline Search Ads.
Advertisers have the ability to control the ASINs that are served in the creative treatment.

The products featured on the landing page should be directly linked to the ad content and headline for
better conversion. Note that overloading custom landing pages with ASINs will require the user to click to
view additional pages of promoted products.

The product images selected in the Ad Builder UI will appear in sequential order within the treatment itself
(note the default images are taken directly from product detail pages).

Select three or more products to be featured on the custom landing page:

Resulting custom landing page:

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Headline Search Ads Keyword Match Types:
Headline Search Ads campaigns support the following three match types:

Broad Match: Broad match is a new keyword match type that can be used for Headline Search Ad
campaigns. It helps expand the reach of your campaigns, matching more variations of your targeted
keywords to shopper search terms. More exposure typically means more impressions.

Additionally, broad match helps advertisers spend less time building keyword lists. You can provide us
with only the most relevant keywords for your campaign, and our broad match algorithm will match your
keywords with related shopper search terms.

Key features:
• The customer search term will match if it contains all the keyword terms or close variants.
• Order does not matter. The customer search term can contain keywords in any order.
• Pluralized words are accepted for singular words; singular words are accepted for pluralized word
(example: “boy shoes” will match with “boys shoes”; “boys shoes” will match with “boy shoe”).
• Stop words are ignored (the, of, and, when, if) in keyword matching (example: for a search query of
“the boy shoe”, it will match to an advertiser keyword of “boy shoe”. The word “the” is ignored in the
matching).

Phrase Match: An ad may appear when a shopper searches for either the exact keyword or that keyword
with additional words before or after it. Phrase match allows for plural and singular keyword variations. For
the example keyword “baseball caps”:
• Eligible search terms are: “lightweight baseball caps”,” baseball caps for girls”, “baseball cap for boys”
• Ineligible search terms are: “cool caps for baseball”, “baseball nice caps”, “red baseball cap”.

Exact Match: The customer’s search term must match the keyword; however, exact match allows for plural
and singular variations. For the example keyword “baseball caps”:
• Eligible search terms are: “baseball caps”, “baseball cap”
• Ineligible search terms are: “red baseball caps”, “cap for baseball”, “baseball caps girls”, “basebal
caps”.

Note on Match Types: Headline Search Ads do not support negative match types. Leverage keyword lists
provided by your Amazon contact and the ‘Customer Search Term Report’ when building Headline Search
campaigns, and consider incorporating suggested keywords displayed in the Ad Builder UI.

Average Bidding Benchmarks for Headline Search Ads:

Category Avg. CPC Bid Category Avg. CPC Bid

Consumables PC $0.96
Baby $0.79 Pet Products $1.26
Beauty $1.06 Sports $0.72
Health and Personal Care $1.36 Sports Memorabilia $0.25
Grocery $1.81 Tires $0.13
Luxury Beauty $1.3 Tools $0.68
Personal Care Appliances $1.71 Toys $0.49
Hardlines Wireless $0.69
Automotive $0.48 Softlines

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 BISS $0.70 Apparel $0.39
Camera $1.17 Jewelry $0.50
Electronics $1.05 Luggage $0.69
Furniture $1.06 Shoes $0.44
Home $0.82 Watches $0.49
Home Entertainment $1.29 Media
Home Improvement $1.01 Digital Software $1.35
Kitchen $0.92 Digital Video Games $1.71
Lawn and Garden $0.69 DVD $0.23
Major Appliances $1.08 Music $$0.15
Musical Instruments $0.53 Software 0.84
Office Products $0.83 Video -
Outdoors $0.76 Video Games $0.99

The table above provides the average winning cost-per-click bids for Headline Search Ads during October of 2017 in the US. Keep in mind that these are average winning bids for keywords that have bids. These
averages do not include the many relevant keywords that do not have bids and can be won with a below-average bid. These averages are provided to help guide bidding decisions, and do not guarantee impressions
nor clicks. It is recommended to not bid more on a keyword than one is willing to pay for a click.

Product Display Ads

Building Product Display Ads is a 5-step process:
1. Choose to target by product or interest.
2. Select the ASIN to be promoted.
3. Select the interest or ASINs to target.
4. Set a campaign budget and bid.
5. Add your logo and headline.

Product Targeting Use Cases

Cross-sell and upsell: Targeting products within the ASIN’s brand (or across brands).
Conquesting (in-category): Targeting an ASIN’s competitive set.
Basket Building (Out-of-category): Selecting complementary products (e.g., chocolates with flower vases).

Product Display Ads do not target shopper search queries. Instead, Product Display Ads are used to target
specific ASINs on Amazon.com, product categories, or shopper interest categories.

Product Targeting
Product targeting allows targeting based on specific products or related product categories.

Target Specific Products

Target specific ASIN product detail pages including those that shoppers might visit to purchase your products
at Amazon.com. You can even target out-of-category ASIN product detail pages.

Expanding Product Targeting

Users will have the option to extend product targeting campaigns to include closely related products. If this
option is enabled, additional target ASINs will be added to the target list based on the ASIN that is advertised
as well as the target ASINs that were selected as part of the campaign. It is possible for this setting to expand
the target list by a maximum of 50,000 ASINs.

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Target Related Product Categories
When targeting related product categories, ads are shown to shoppers who are shopping for products that fall
within the broader category to which the advertised product belongs. A list of categories available to target in
your campaign will be provided based on the product selected to advertise, and Product Display Ads targeted
in this manner will be eligible to show on every detail page within the categories selected.

Note: product category targeting may not be available for all categories.

Interest Targeting
Target specific shopper interest category detail pages to reach an audience type of your choice. There is no
relevancy algorithm used in the Product Display Ads auctions. Thus, one can target out-of-category shopper
interests.

Interest Targeting Use Cases:

Top-of-funnel brand advertising is a broader browsing behavioral targeting mechanism that helps advertisers
reach shoppers in market for a certain category of products. Interest Targeting can deliver a higher impression
volume than that of Product Targeting that is often desired by larger advertisers.

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A list of potential interest categories can be found below.

Books Plumbing Arts and Crafts Green/Environmentally Drama

Accounting and Finance Power and Hand Tools Construction, Building Sets Conscious Educational
Alternative Medicine Tools and Building Supplies and Blocks Health, Beauty and Fashion Horror
Arts and Photography Tools and Home Improvement Electronics for Kids Holiday Hosts Indy Film Fans
Audiobooks Games and Puzzles Home Entertainers Kids and Family
Biographies and Memoirs Digital Media Girl toys Home Improvers Romance
Business and Investing Amazon Instant Video Kid’s Costumes Home Makers Science Fiction
Computers and Internet Interest Learning and Exploration Leisure Travelers TV Shows
Cooking, Food and Wine Android Appstore Interest Play Vehicles Military Interest
Entertainment App Games Interest Plush Toys Music Production/ Sports and Outdoors
Health and Fitness Business and Office Software Preschool Toys and Games Technology All Action Sports
Health, Mind and Body Kindle Store Music, Movies, TV Fans Camping and Backpacking
History MP3 Downloads Grocery Outdoor Enthusiasts Cycling
Home and Garden Baking Pet Lovers Exercise and Fitness
Literature and Fiction Electronics Beverages Photo Interest Golf
Medical All Digital Cameras Breakfast foods Retirement Interest Hunting and Fishing
Mystery and Thrillers Apple Products and Tablets Canned and Packaged Goods Sci-fi Fans NFL Interest
Nonfiction Batteries Chocolate Shopping Enthusiasts Outdoor Recreation
Nutrition Camera, Photo and Video Coffee Sportsmen Sports Fans
Parenting and Families Cell Phones and Accessories Natural and Organic Tax Interest Strength Training
Programming Computers and Accessories Snacks, Cookies and Candy Video Gamers Team Sports
Romance Digital SLRs Tea
Science GPS and Navigation Home and Garden
Sports Headphones Health and Beauty Bath
Teens Home Audio Accessories Allergy, Sinus and Asthma Bedding
Textbooks Home Networking Baby and Child Care Bedroom Furniture
Travel Home Theater Bath and Shower Coffee, Tea and Espresso
Women’s Fiction MP3 Players Beauty Appliances
Music Production/Technology Body Skin Care Cookware
Clothing, Shoes and Jewelry Office Products and Supplies Creams, Balms and Dining Room Furniture
Active Men’s Clothing Point-and-Shoot Digital Aftershaves Furniture
Active Women’s Clothing Cameras Electric Shavers Grills and Smokers
Athletic Shoes Portable Audio Exercise and Fitness Hand Tools
Clothing Printers and Supplies Face Care Home Appliances
Fashion Boots Safety and Security Fragrances Home Decor
Fashion Shoes and Security and Surveillance Hair Care Household Supplies
Handbags Tablets Herbal Supplements Ironing
Jewelry Television and Video Makeup Kitchen Knives and Cutlery
Luggage Video Games Men’s Grooming Kitchen Utensils and Gadgets
Men’s Clothing XBOX One Nutrition Bars and Drinks Kitchen and Dining
Men’s Shoes Nutrition and Fitness Kitchen and Dining Gift
Men’s Watches Kids and Baby Oral Hygiene Ideas
Women’s Clothing Baby Apparel Shaving and Hair Removal Laundry
Women’s Shoes Baby Bedding Skin Care Lighting
Women’s Watches Baby Feeding Vitamins and Supplements Living Room Furniture
Baby Furniture Women’s Fragrance Outdoor Furniture
Music Baby Products Patio, Lawn and Garden
Dance and Electronic Car Seats Lifestyle, Hobby and Pet Supplies
Indie Diapering and Potty Professional Sewing
New Age Nursery Auto Enthusiasts Small Appliances
Opera and Vocal Strollers Bargain Hunters and Deal Storage and Organization
Pop Seekers Tableware
R&B Pet Supplies Coffee Lovers Vacuums and Floor Care
Rock Cat Food Computer Mavens
World Cats Supplies Consumer Electronics Mavens Movies and TV
Dog Food Digerati Action and Adventure
Tools, Auto and Industrial Dogs Supplies Early Adopters Animation
Automotive Entertainment Junkies Anime
Industrial and Scientific Tools Toys and Games Fashionistas Classics
Outdoor Power Equipment Action Figures Foodies Comedy
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Average Bidding Benchmarks for Product Display Ads:

Category Avg. CPC Bid Category Avg. CPC Bid

Consumables PC $0.62
Baby $0.67 Pet Products $0.98
Beauty $0.79 Sports $0.60
Health and Personal Care $0.99 Sports Memorabilia $0.42
Grocery $1.20 Tires $0.30
Luxury Beauty $1.21 Tools $0.43
Personal Care Appliances $1.13 Toys $0.40
Hardlines Wireless $0.53
Automotive $0.40 Softlines
BISS $0.58 Apparel $0.28
Camera $0.86 Jewelry $0.18
Electronics $0.77 Luggage $0.37
Furniture $0.96 Shoes $0.19
Home $0.68 Watches $0.32
Home Entertainment $2.23 Media
Home Improvement $0.66 Digital Software $2.06
Kitchen $0.65 Digital Video Games $2.99
Lawn and Garden $0.52 DVD $0.28
Major Appliances $0.46 Music $0.18
Musical Instruments $0.40 Software $0.62
Office Products $0.63 Video -
Outdoors $0.47 Video Games $0.44

The table above provides the average winning cost-per-click bids for Product Display Ads during October of 2017 in the US. Keep in mind that these are average winning bids for keywords that have bids. These
averages do not include the many relevant keywords that do not have bids and can be won with a below-average bid. These averages are provided to help guide bidding decisions, and do not guarantee impressions
nor clicks. It is recommended to not bid more on a keyword than one is willing to pay for a click.

Including Vendor Powered Coupons in Product Display Ads and Sponsored Products
Vendor powered coupons (VPCs) are available for promotion via Product Display Ads and Sponsored Products.

For Product Display Ads, a coupon clip fee is not applied to the cost-per-click pricing model. Inquire with your
client whether VPCs are available for promotion. Please note Subscribe & Save VPCs are not eligible.

1. Choose Product Display, select

“Product” as the targeting method,
and enter then select the ASIN that
has a VPC associated with it.

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2. Set targeting strategy and
campaign settings, then select
“Yes, advertise my coupon” under
“Create your ad”.

3. Create the Ad Headline and

preview your ad.

For Sponsored Products, the coupon is automatically displayed once the VPC is available.

Deals on Product Display Ads

Limited time deals – such as Lightning Deals and Savings and Sales Deals – can now be advertised
through Product Display Ads. Instead of relying on shoppers to find their deal among the thousands
that run daily on Amazon, vendors can now boost their visibility by advertising their limited-time
offers on product detail pages, including both desktop and mobile versions. This helps generate
more product views and potential purchases in a short timeframe.

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Vendors can create a Product Display Ad campaign and select the deal they want to advertise. They can
choose from product, categories, or interest targeting options in Ad Builder, and input their bid and budget for
the campaign.

Real-Time Creative Refresh: Product Display Ads are updated based on live deal information. For example:
• The start and end date of the campaign are automatically set based on the Lightning Deal.
• The claim bar on the creative shows real-time information on the % of units left for Lightning Deals. (Note:
The claim bar will appear on Lightning Deal ads if there is sufficient space to show).
• If the advertised deal sells out while the ad campaign is running, the PDA campaign will be paused.

Standardized Creative Template: Amazon will generate a deal-specific ad, which will run across high-
performing placements. The deal badge, promotion price, and expiry time will be displayed on the ads.

Time-Bound: For Lightning Deals, the deal start time is determined by Amazon and is not an editable field in
creating the PDA deal ad. The ad campaign sets the start and end time automatically based on the Deal ID.
Lightning Deal campaigns can be paused or enabled in the PDA campaign dashboard. If deal units are sold
out, the campaign will be automatically paused.

For Savings and Sales Deals, the ad campaign sets the start and end time automatically based on the Deal ID.
The advertiser can choose to edit the campaign’s duration as long as the campaign dates are within the deal
start and end dates. Like with Lightning Deals, the campaign will be automatically paused if deal units sell out.

Eligiblity: Ads can only be run for eligible deals. These must be approved and scheduled by the Deals Team,
and the deal end time must be less than 48 hours away. If the deal is not eligible, the advertiser will not be able
to select it for their ad campaign.

Deals must be approved in Vendor Central or Vendor Express at least 72 hours before their live date, allowing
the Ad Moderation team time to review the PDA ads.

Lastly, vendors may only advertise their own deals. PDA populates deals in the ad builder based on the vendor
code.

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Create an Amazon Store
Amazon Stores is a free self-service product that allows brand owners to design and create multi-page stores
to showcase their brands, products, and value proposition on Amazon.com. Amazon Stores can be linked
through a Headline Search Ad and advertisers can direct traffic to Stores via social media.

Amazon Stores lets you:

• Showcase a full range of products across different verticals and sub-brands in dedicated subpages.
• Feature groups of products.
• Find different categories under a large brand.
• Showcase emergent product lines.
• Create dedicated pages for single products.

Plus, Amazon Stores gives you the opportunity to connect more meaningfully with customers through rich
media, dynamically displayed content, enhanced visuals, and curated product collections. They provide your
audience with an elevated shopping experience targeted to their interests, driving engagement and loyalty.

Store Setup
Creating an Amazon Store is an easy, intuitive process. Store Builder displays the full website and multi-page
layout, and uses drag-and-drop functionality for widgets and content.

Amazon Stores are comprised of one or more pages. Each page features a header and footer surrounding a
number of content tiles. Each store can have 3 levels, with multiple pages at each level that can:
• Display text, videos, images, products, and best-selling products.
• Dynamically display content and feature recommended products depending on the shopper viewing the
Store.
• Simplify the page-building experience with easy-to-use templates.

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Three page templates – Product Grid, Marquee, and Showcase – are available to let you quickly set up pages
with default content tiles.

Product Grid: Display a large number of products Marquee: Designed to act as a brand or sub- Showcase: Build a story around the brand and
brand gateway page products

Advertise Your Store with Headline Search Ads

Use Headline Search Ads to create a powerful, integrated brand experience. When customers click on the
logo and headline, they’re driven directly to your store.
• Target your Headline Search Ad to keywords relevant to your Amazon Store and products.
• Stores can be discovered within Amazon or can be used in external marketing channels, which helps
increase traffic for the Amazon Store in Amazon.

Drive Traffic to Your Store

Own a unique Amazon URL linked to your store (Amazon.com/BRANDNAME) to drive traffic from places
outside of Amazon, such as blogs, social media, and other marketing channels.
• Stores are discoverable via brand by-line, the blue brand-name link displayed under or above product
names on a product’s detail pages.
• Shoppers can share store pages on social media, helping to drive organic visitors.

Reporting Metrics
Tools are available to help optimize your Amazon Store
traffic based on traffic source. Reporting data currently
includes Views (by source) and Visits (by source).

You can also get reporting for external traffic sources

to gauge the effectiveness of third-party advertising for
your store.

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Campaign Review and Approval
Sponsored Products campaigns typically go live within 1-2 hours. Headline Search Ads and Product Display
Ads undergo a review by AMS Moderation Teams who ensure policy compliance once the campaigns are
submitted. The SLA for approval is 72 hours although these two ad types typically go live within 24 hours
once review is complete.

While Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads campaigns are under review, they cannot be edited or
pulled back from the moderation queue. Changes that need to be made must wait until the campaign has
either been approved or rejected.

Ad Creation Guidelines
Financial Thresholds
ASINs must meet certain financial thresholds in order to be eligible for AMS promotion. If these financial
thresholds are not met, then the following messaging will appear in the Amazon Marketing Services Ad
Builder interface:

These financial thresholds are controlled by Amazon Retail. In rare instances, an Amazon vendor may not
meet these financial thresholds and may be blocked from promoting any of their ASINs. Your Agency Contact
can run a check prior to campaign launch to manage expectations around ASIN eligibility. Note that eligibility
may change on a weekly basis, which may necessitate a conversation with your client around promotable
ASINs, and actionable next steps to ensure ASIN eligibility.

Creative Acceptance Policy

All advertising must adhere to Amazon’s Creative Acceptance Policy.

Amazon Marketing Services Copy Guidelines

If any of the following guidelines are flagged, the keyword or campaign will be rejected.

Product
• Promotion of restricted products (e.g., weapons, sex toys, alcoholic beverages)
Headline Copy
• Headline in ALL CAPS or no capitalized first letter
• Headline doesn’t conform to sentence-case styling
• Inappropriate language

31
• Price callouts in copy (e.g., dollar value or a % discount callout)
• Time sensitive copy (e.g., “Prime Day”, “Black Friday”, “Today only”)
• Text errors (e.g., misspellings)
• Unsupported or unsubstantiated claims (e.g., “World’s best toothpaste” or “The #1 iPhone Case in the
US”)
• Superlatives (e.g., “Best Seller”, “Best”, “Highest Quality”, “Ultimate”, “Top Ranking”, “Top Quality
Rated”)
Landing Page
• Fewer than 3 ASINs on Headline Search Ad landing page
• Time-sensitive landing pages
Image
• Poor logo quality or resolution

The following characters are not allowed in keywords: + < > ( ) # @ ^ ! *. Quotation marks are allowed
but only in pairs. Keywords with more than 10 words are not permitted. There is also a limit on length: 80
characters for Sponsored Products and 128 characters for Headline Search Ads.

Blacklisted Keywords
Not all search queries are eligible for ad impressions. Amazon reserves the right to blacklist keywords that
are strategic for its own business. There are currently ~1,000 blacklisted keywords. Examples of these
include “Prime,” “Kindle,” and “Amazon Web Services.”

Trademarks as Keywords
Amazon won’t restrict the selection of trademarks as keywords. If a keyword has not been blacklisted by
Amazon then any advertiser can place a bid on that keyword (e.g., “Kleenex”, “Q-tips”, “ChapStick”).

Frequency Cap
Shoppers will not be served the same Headline Search Ad more than five times or the same Product Display
Ad more than three times within a 24-hour window. Sponsored Products does not have a frequency cap.

Placement Specifics by Product

Sponsored Products
The search results top of page, search results bottom of page, and product detail page shoveler placements
run separate auctions. It is possible to win multiple Sponsored Products auctions on the same search results
page. There are also Sponsored Products placements dedicated to book advertising on Bookstore detail
pages of Fire Tablet and Kindle E-reader devices.

Note: Amazon Fresh ASINs are not currently eligible for Sponsored Products placement, and limitations with
digital ASINs (e.g., software, video, music) may exist.

Headline Search Ads

Some Headline Search Ads placements are shared with Amazon house ad placements, thus Headline
Search Ads may not be served from time to time.
Note: Amazon Fresh ASINs are not currently eligible for Headline Search Ads placement, and limitations with

32
digital ASINs (e.g., software, video, music) may exist.

Product Display Ads

Some Product Display Ad placements are shared with IAB-standard Amazon Media Group (AMG)
placements, priced on a CPM model. The CPM-based buys are given priority in serving impressions, and the
non-reserved inventory is provided to AMS via the auction.
Note: Amazon Fresh ASINs are not currently eligible for Product Display Ads placement, and limitations with
digital ASINs (e.g., software, video, music) may exist.

Product Display Ads offer a CPC email placement, a 610x120 banner served in Abandoned Cart, View
Follow up, and Recommendations emails delivered through Amazon merchandising based on consumer
browsing behavior. This placement can be won via auction but not specifically targeted through the creation
of a Product Display campaign. Certain products may not be eligible to serve in Product Display Ad email
campaigns. Relevancy checks are also in place to ensure only contextually targeted ads are surfaced in
email.

PDA Email Placement:

Style and function for a practical,

beautiful home

33
Managing Your Campaigns
Campaign Requirements
Several conditions exist in AMS that can pause live keywords or prevent entire campaigns from running.
Sponsored Products Ads
• A strict relevancy algorithm will run prior to the ad serving, which takes into account the keywords
associated with the ASINs our advertisers are promoting, as well as historical search data associated
with those ASINs. If there is not a strong degree of coherence between these data sets, then the
promoted ASIN will not serve.
• Hence, Sponsored Products may not be a good candidate for brand conquesting or out-of-category
keyword selection. The keywords that do not pass through this relevancy guardrail will not serve any
impressions.
• The advertiser / vendor must be winning the buy box for this unit to serve. If the advertiser loses the
buy box mid-flight for a certain ASIN, then the ad promoting that particular ASIN will pause, but the
Sponsored Products campaign will continue to run if the campaign is promoting at least one other
ASIN that is winning the buy box. Otherwise, the campaign will pause as well.
• If the promoted ASIN is out of stock mid-flight for a certain ASIN, then the ad promoting that ASIN will
pause, but the Sponsored Products campaign will continue to run if the campaign is promoting at least
one other ASIN that is in stock. Otherwise, the campaign will pause as well.
• Ads will unpause automatically mid-flight when the ASIN is back in stock.

Headline Search Ads (HSA)

• Automated relevancy guardrail: after ~1000 impressions, keywords that do not meet a minimum
clickthrough rate (CTR) threshold will be automatically paused, even if the associated clicks translate
to sales activity.
• At any point in time, if fewer than three ASINs are eligible on the Headline Search Ads custom landing
page, the campaign will pause and campaign status will show “Landing page not available.” At least
three ASINs must be in stock and at least one ASIN must meet the financial threshold criteria. The
campaign will resume automatically when at least three ASINs are in stock and campaign status will
change back to “Running.”
• If an ASIN featured in the creative ad unit is not in stock, it will be automatically removed from the
creative to avoid redirecting traffic to an out of stock item.
• Unlike Sponsored Products, a Headline Search Ads campaign will continue to serve even if the
advertiser / vendor is losing the buy box.

Product Display Ads (PDA)

• Product Display Ads can utilize Product Targeting. Thus, Product Display Ads may be good candidates
for brand conquesting or out-of-category keyword selection.
• Like Sponsored Products, if the promoted ASIN is out of stock, then the ads will be paused mid-flight.
• Like Sponsored Products, ads will resume when a promoted ASIN is back in stock.
• Unlike Sponsored Products, a Product Display Ads campaign will continue to serve even if the
advertiser / vendor is losing the buy box.
• If an associated Vendor Powered Coupon (VPC) is no longer valid, then the ad will revert back to a
normal, non-VPC associated Product Display Ad format.

34
Best Practices
Campaign Setup and Naming Conventions

Set-up Guidance
Your initial setup should consist of 20 campaigns:
• 9 manual Sponsored Products campaigns. Launch 1 campaign for each combination of keyword type
(branded, conquesting, and category) and match type (broad, phrase, and exact). Use the same bids
on all keywords in all campaigns, and the same keywords within each keyword type (with only one
variation for match type). Use the same advertised ASINs in all campaigns.
• 1 automatic Sponsored Products campaign. Launch 1 campaign per product type and run for at least
a month.
• 9 Headline Search Ads campaigns. Launch 1 campaign for each combination of keyword type
(branded, conquesting, and category) and match type (broad, phrase, and exact). Use the same
creative in all campaigns (left-hand image and 3 featured products), and the same landing page in your
campaigns.
• 1 Product Display Ad campaign. The advertiser should choose their own targeting method (own
ASINs, competitor ASINs, category ASINs, or related categories).

In the event you have product subcategories, you’ll want to follow the above method and launch 20
campaigns for each subcategory. For instance, if you sell household products that span paper, laundry,
and household cleaners, you would create campaigns for each of these 3 subcategories, bringing you to a
total of 60 campaigns.

However, if bandwidth is a concern, you can consolidate match types into single campaigns. This will
reduce the number of campaigns from the recommended 20 to 8.

Naming Conventions

When it comes to naming campaigns, we recommend using the following guidance to keep your
campaigns organized. It will help you sort and filter more efficiently in the future.

Product Category | Sub-product (optional) | Ad Type | Keyword Type | Match Type | Manual/Auto | Version/
Time

Example: Laundry | Sensitive Skin | HSA | Competitor | Exact | Auto | 2017Q3

Tips for Driving Optimal Results

When setting up your campaigns, keep these considerations top of mind:

• Select ASINs rated above 3.5+ stars, as they will likely convert better.
• Select ASINs that frequently win the Buy Box.
• Select ASINs with quality detail pages (e.g., multiple product images, accurate titles, and relevant, up-
to-date product descriptions).
• Start bidding at 50% above the category average for keywords to help ensure they’re winning.
• Where applicable, set daily budgets for your campaigns (instead of campaign-level budgets) for
increased flexibility. Note that campaign-level budgets cannot be decreased.

35
Sponsored Products
Suggested Strategies
• For more informed reporting and analysis, take the opportunity to group like ASINs together within the
same Sponsored Products campaign. For example, separate campaigns by product category or variation
(e.g., have a campaign for TVs and a separate campaign for radios).
• Set the daily budget to the maximum you are willing to pay to avoid losing opportunity. Sponsored
Products campaigns pause when the daily budget is exhausted.
• Run the campaign continuously unless there is a specific promotion period for the campaign (80% of
Sponsored Products campaigns currently have no end date set, ensuring an “always on” presence).
• To increase impressions, increase keyword bids to the maximum you are willing to pay per click, advertise
more products in the campaign (ensuring the products are all relevant to targeted keywords), add more
keywords including both branded and non-branded keyword terms, and add variations of keywords (e.g.,
for the keyword “shoes”, also add “blue shoes”, “red shoes,” and “black shoes”).
• Feature multiple ASINs per campaign to help prevent campaigns from being paused due to ineligibility or
in-stock issues.
• Take advantage of bulk operations to create, manage, and optimize campaigns in bulk and at scale,
saving time and manual effort.

Campaign Organization Tips

Sponsored Products permit multiple ASINs to be advertised within a single campaign. Consider employing
a deliberate campaign organization strategy for added effectiveness. For example, considering organizing
campaigns by the following:
• Product Type: combine similar products into a single campaign as you will likely use the same keywords to
position these products.
• Product Lifecycle: organize products by their lifecycle to fine tune strategy for new and seasonal products.
Consider keeping products that have reached maturity separate from new and seasonal products, as they
may require different keyword targeting and positioning strategies.
• Price: organize products by price. Separate high and low priced products to help optimize Advertising
Cost of Sales (ACoS). For example, products with a higher price point may allow for higher bids.
• Keyword: separate campaigns by branded, competitive, and category keywords to understand how
shoppers are searching for products and which shoppers may be more likely to purchase.

Targeting Tips
It is recommended that you start with automatic targeting for the first few weeks to have Amazon’s shopping
intelligence provide highly relevant search terms that generate traffic and product sales. Bid high when using
automatic targeting in order to see which keywords would work best.

After running automatic targeting for a few weeks, leverage the keyword insights from the Customer
Search Term Report to create an informed manually-targeted campaign. Optimize these manually-targeted
campaigns using the newfound keyword insights, adjusting the bid to the maximum you are willing to pay to
win that keyword. Check back in on manually-targeted campaigns to ensure the keywords have generated
impressions. If no impressions have served, consider increasing keyword bids.

It is recommended to continue to run automatic targeting campaigns however, even after initial insights
are garnered to optimize manually-targeted campaigns. This way, your automatic targeting campaigns can
adapt dynamically to changes in customer search behavior due to seasonality or other trends. Moreover,
any new high performing search terms uncovered by automatic targeting can be added to manually-targeted
campaigns.

36
AGENCY TOOLKIT
AMAZON MARKETING SERVICES (AMS)

Keyword Match Type Tips

Keyword match types that are offered for Sponsored Products include broad, phrase, exact, negative
phrase, and negative exact. Given the search behavior of Amazon shoppers may not mimic that of other
platforms, it is recommended to start with broad match, before drilling down to more specific match types
based on the RoAS of a given keyword. High-priority keywords should use exact match with higher bids.

Negative phrase and negative exact are match types that prevent ads from being triggered by certain
search terms (word or phrase). When a keyword is set with a negative match, AMS will not show the
ad to shoppers searching for that phrase. This functionality is only available with Sponsored Products
campaigns. It is recommended that these match types be used to block activity on underperforming
keywords.

When selecting keywords:

• Use Amazon-suggested keywords in addition to adding your own keywords.

• Include keywords using your own brand name.
• Include generic, non-branded keywords.
• Out-of-category and conquested branded terms may be caught by the relevance guardrail.

Bid+
Enable Bid+ to increase the opportunity for your ads to show in top-of-page placements in manually-
targeted Sponsored Products campaigns. Top-of-page placements include page 1 and page 2 of search
results, and are also now available for softlines vendors.

Bid+ can be activated in the Campaign Settings tab for manually-targeted Sponsored Products campaigns
once a campaign is active.

Bid+ takes into account real-time auction information for each placement an ad is eligible for and
dynamically raises keyword bids by up to 50%. For example, if the default bid is $0.50, Bid+ can raise the
bid as high as $0.75. Bid+ optimizes bids in real time and can help ads be more competitive, helping to
add more value to a Sponsored Products campaign budget. Because Bid+ may increase the default bid,
average cost-per-click may be higher than usual. Bid+ can be enabled and disabled at any time mid-flight
in the Campaign Manager.

Please note that Bid+ does not ensure top-of-page placement, as stricter relevance requirements are
enforced for top-of-page placement. At this time, specific reporting for Bid+ metrics is not available.

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Headline Search Ads
Please note, all use cases are not treated equally and the relevancy guardrails will apply.

Suggested Strategies
• It is recommended that product images are used instead of brand logos, as customers visit Amazon
for products and not brands.
• For an “always-on” presence, utilize the daily budget option and run the campaign continuously.
• Create headlines with engaging messaging and strong calls to action (e.g., “Save Now”). Headlines
that feature product benefits also tend to perform well (e.g., “Excel detergent for dishwashers –
removes even the toughest stains”).
• Avoid any unsupported claims like “#1” or “Best Seller” (e.g., “#1 digital camera on the market” will not
be approved). Any claims made must appear on the product detail page.
• Some advertisers choose to promote multiple brands within one Headline Search Ads campaign.
This approach is recommended in scenarios where there are few ASINs per brand or where a basket-
building exercise is desired.
• Combine Headline Search Ads campaign keywords with the keywords from Sponsored Products
campaigns to reach the broadest targeted audience and possibly win multiple auctions on the same
search results page, resulting in a real estate takeover.
• Advertise more than 3 products per campaign to avoid being paused due to ineligibility or in-stock
issues.
• Create an Amazon Store to showcase a curated product collection, engage customers with relevant,
dynamically displayed content, and drive brand awareness.

Testing Tips
To potentially improve campaign performance, run test campaigns with different creative or headline copy.
This includes changing which product or logo is featured as the main image on the ad placement as well
as adjusting the copy to include more engaging content. Another area to test is the landing page. If using a
custom landing page, try different sequences of products featured or, if using Amazon Stores, try out new
layouts or content to see if performance metrics improve. It is recommended to feature ASINs with quality
detail pages; it ensures that ASINs showcased on a landing page or store have positive reviews and useful
content.

Keyword Match Type Tips

Headline Search Ads currently offer the following match types for keywords: broad, phrase, and exact.

If you are bidding on the same keywords as those used in a Sponsored Products campaign, consider
bidding more competitively for the Headline Search Ads keywords since there is only one Headline Search
Ads placement on desktop and one placement on mobile.

If keywords are not generating impressions, search for the keyword on Amazon.com. If a competitor’s ad
is being served, then increase your bid on that keyword. If a campaign does not deliver impressions, it is
recommended not to terminate the campaign, since the placement may be won at a future time.

Leverage Phrase keyword match and include pluralized variants to maximize coverage. If phrase matched
keywords are generating low click-through rates, try adding the same keywords as an exact match
instead.

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Win Rate
Win Rate is a new keyword share of impressions estimation tool that helps you optimize Headline Search
Ads campaigns. Win Rate shows the estimated share of impressions a keyword may win over the next
30 days based on historical performance and is calculated based on campaign relevance, bid, and other
advertisers’ bids for the keyword over the last 30 days.

While Win Rate may be affected by the specific keyword, match type, bid, and promoted product, it is not
affected by campaign budget, overlapping keywords in the same campaign, or other Amazon advertising
solutions.

Win Rate is only available in the ‘Campaign Details’ view for existing Headline Search Ads campaigns.
In this view, a traffic potential metric is also available, which indicates the relative search volume for the
keyword within the advertised product’s category. Please note, this estimate does not take Win Rate into
account.

Note: Amazon attempts to predict the Win Rate for a given keyword based on its past performance. If
there is insufficient data to make a good prediction, the Win Rate will not be available for that keyword. In
these cases, a dash “-” will appear.

Product Display Ads

Given the high inventory volumes of these placements, advertisers leverage Product Display Ads to drive
awareness through product targeting and interest-based targeting.

Each Product Display Ads campaign can support the promotion of one ASIN. ASIN targeting selection
can come from top-performing ASINs on Amazon. To find top-performing ASINs by category, go to the
“Product Details” section of any Product Detail Page. Click on the “Top 100” link and the associated
subcategory links to gather this intelligence.

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 Before launching your initial Product Display Ad campaigns, consider creating a list of target ASINs using
“Frequently Bought Together” along with “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” information
surfaced on product detail pages.

Suggested Strategies
• Use Product Display Ads campaigns to target seasonal products around themed tentpoles (e.g., Super
Bowl, holidays, back to school).
• Ensure the ad copy is consistent with the product, using engaging messaging and strong calls to
action (e.g., “Save Now”). Creative copy that highlights product benefits also tend to perform well (e.g.,
“Excel detergent for dishwashers – removes even the toughest stains”).
• Leverage Vendor Powered Coupons (VPCs). Inquire with your client whether VPCs are available for
promotion.
• Advertise limited-time deals – including Lightning Deals and Savings and Sales Deals – on Product
Display Ads to boost visibility on product detail pages.
• Focus on your own portfolio or complementary products to cross-sell and up-sell shoppers.
• Use Product Display Ads as a defensive strategy to ensure ads show on product detail pages your
competitors would otherwise target.
• Launch new campaigns to promote additional ASINs when existing campaigns pause due to ASINs
being out-of-stock.

Targeting Tips
Product targeting and interest targeting both have their advantages. For example, if the goal of a Product
Display Ads campaign is to drive awareness, it is recommended to take advantage of interest targeting
and target several shopper interest categories with conservative bids. This way, your campaign could have
broad in-category and cross-category coverage, increasing the opportunity to serve more impressions
over the campaign’s duration.

Conversely, if the goal of a Product Display Ads campaign is a high return on advertising spend, it is
recommended to take advantage of product targeting and target the specific products most relevant to
potential shoppers using aggressive bids (e.g., upsell, cross-sell, conquesting, and basket-building). This
way, your campaign could employ a precise targeting method, increasing the opportunity to focus only on
high converting placements.

Targeting by product category can be used to target an entire product category at once, instead of
designating many individual products to target from the same category one by one. It is recommended
to create a campaign for the flagship product within each of your brand’s native categories to maximize
coverage across relevant detail pages.

Testing Tips
To potentially improve campaign performance, run test campaigns with different creative or text. This
includes changing which product or logo is featured as the main image on the ad placement as well as
adjusting the copy to include more engaging content.

NEW Amazon Stores

Amazon Stores provide brands with the opportunity to capture their unique positioning. To maximize
the potential of your Store, think and act creatively – building a compelling, cohesive experience to

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drive awareness, conversions, and customer loyalty.
Suggested Strategies
• Take advantage of the range of content types and widgets available for your Store. Use rich media
(such as video) and lifestyle images to elevate your aesthetic.
• Engage the “Share” widget so that customers can share your page on their social media accounts.
This helps drive traffic from places outside of Amazon, giving your Store more exposure.
• Choose the template best-suited to your objectives. For example, if you want to display a large
number of products to show the breadth of your assortment, you might want to choose Product
Grid, which is designed to support this goal. More advanced users may be comfortable developing a
custom template for their Store.
• Link your Store to your Headline Search Ad campaign for a more integrated and powerful advertising
experience.
• To help build loyalty and give customers a reason to revisit your Store, handpick listings or use
dynamic widgets to auto-populate different product displays based on individual shopper insights
(like keyword search, best-selling products, or recommendation history). These widgets automatically
update your Store pages when you add new listings.
• Link a unique URL to your Store to strengthen your branding efforts.

New Product Launches

New products on Amazon will have very little organic search visibility; hence AMS promotion is highly
recommended. Consider setting more conservative RoAS goals and thresholds, as the main objective may
be to gain exposure.

Some recommendations for new product promotions:

• Utilize all three ad units (Sponsored Products, Headline Search Ads, and Product Display Ads) to
maximize exposure around launch.
• Pair Headline Search Ads with Sponsored Product placements to maximize exposure and visibility.
• Set broader keyword lists for new products.
• Test “New” in the copy for Headline Search and Product Display Ads.

Always On Advertising Strategy

Taking an always on approach to Amazon Marketing Services can help you:
• Stay top of mind with your customers throughout the year
• Accelerate awareness of and demand for your products
• Remain discoverable – you never know when shoppers are looking for your products
• Manage your campaigns strategically with a dedicated year-long budget

To best prepare for always on advertising, first focus on retail readiness and actively work with your vendor
manager to maintain healthy in-stock rates and establish pricing that can profitably and consistently
win the buy-box. Consider enhancing your detail pages with A+ content, which provides shoppers with
information that can improve and streamline the shopping experience.

On the marketing side, establish goals and budgets specifically dedicated to your evergreen program.
Once you’ve got a working plan in place and have launched, monitor campaigns on a monthly basis
to make sure you are not going out of budget early each day. During setup, we recommend creating

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campaigns with daily budgets, so you are able to come back and easily adjust as needed month-to-month
to ensure full daily coverage for all of your campaigns.

Helpful Features and Tips

Campaign Cloning
Campaigns may be cloned within the AMS Ad Builder UI. When the ‘Copy’ link is clicked from the Ads
dashboard, a draft campaign is created with all of the parameters of the original campaign pre-populated.
Any ASIN or keyword that in paused state will be cloned in the new campaign.

Draft Campaigns
All AMS campaigns may be created/staged to be launched at a later date. These drafted campaigns will
appear at the top of your Ads Dashboard:

Bulk Importing of Keywords

Bulk Import of keywords is available for all AMS advertisers using Headline Search Ads and Sponsored
Products. The feature is available in the Ad Builder, and helps advertisers add up to 1,000 keywords per
campaign. Advertisers can download a template from the Ad Builder to add keywords, match types, and
bids. This file can then be uploaded:

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Editing In-Flight Campaigns
There are certain campaign features that may be edited mid-flight. Note that edits cannot be made when ads
are under review, particularly Headline Search Ads or Product Display Ads.

Sponsored Products Headline Search Ads Product Display ads

Campaign Name Cannot be modified Cannot be modified Cannot be modified

Daily Budget Can be increased or decreased Can be increased or decreased Can be increased or decreased

Campaign Budget N/A Can only be increased Can only be increased

Budget Pacing N/A Cannot be modified Cannot be modified

Flight Dates Can be extended or shortened Can be extended or shortened Can be extended or shortened
Can be added, paused, or Can be added, paused, or
Keywords N/A
unpaused unpaused
Match Type Cannot be modified Cannot be modified N/A
Can be added, paused, or
Promoted ASIN(s) Cannot be modified Cannot be modified
unpaused
Targeting Type N/A N/A Cannot be modified

Targeted Products N/A N/A Can be added or removed

Can be paused, enabled, or
Targeted Product Categories N/A N/A
added
Can be paused, enabled, or
Targeted Interest Categories N/A N/A
added
Bids Can be increased or decreased Can be increased or decreased Can be increased or decreased

Copy / Creative N/A Cannot be modified Cannot be modified

Landing Page N/A Cannot be modified N/A

Any changes to targeting, creative, or copy will require the campaign to be paused or terminated, and then
cloned. Similarly, if a campaign ends, its end date cannot be extended to restart the campaign. Instead, clone
the campaign to relaunch with new flight dates.

Self-Competition
Bidding on keywords within one AMS account will not result in bidding up the keyword. However, if the
account setup is at the brand level (where each brand has its own AMS account instance), then bidding on
keywords across those accounts could potentially result in self-competition.

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AMS Optimization Guidance
AMS now offers campaign optimization tips to help advertisers understand campaign performance and
optimize campaigns. This feature ensures advertisers receive the right guidance – at the right time – as
they navigate through their AMS dashboard.

The optimization tips are integrated into the AMS dashboard experience, offering assistance in resolving
advertiser questions as they go through their campaign reports. These contextual tips are provided
through interactive tip-balloons overlaid on the screen.

Advertisers can opt into the feature in the AMS dashboard by clicking the light bulb icon at the top right
of their screen. To turn off the feature, click “X” at any time.

User Activity History

User Activity History is available as a new tab in the AMS Campaign Manager for Headline Search
and Product Display Ads. This new feature tracks changes made on launched, running, paused, and
terminated campaigns such as: increasing or decreasing budgets, extending campaign end dates,
increasing or decreasing keyword bids, adding or removing targeted ASINs (for Product Display Ads), and
more. Use Activity History shows 60 days of data at a time from a chosen start date.

Creative Validation Assistant for Headline Search and Product Display Ads
Save time publishing Headline Search and Product Display Ads campaigns with the new creative
validation assistant. This assistant helps you comply with Amazon Marketing Services’ creative standards
and prevent basic mistakes when setting the headlines of your ads.

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Reporting
Reporting Basics
Reporting Metrics
AMS offers on-demand reporting at a campaign and keyword level. Impression and click-level reporting is
real-time, while sales attribution may take up to 72 hours to display after a purchase is made.

All campaign-level reporting can be downloaded in .csv format by clicking on the button.

The metric used as a proxy for Return on Ad Spend is ACoS, or the Advertising Cost of Sales. This
represents the percent of attributed sales spent on advertising (i.e., total spend divided by total sales).

Reporting is currently not offered at a placement or account level.

Impressions are registered when ads load on a page, even if below the fold and not initially visible by a
customer.

Sales Attribution
Sales attribution within AMS is based on a 14-day last-click window. The attribution model de-dupes
across all ads, between AMS campaigns. AMS avoids double-counting sales by attributing to the last ad
that the Amazon shopper clicked.

Attribution is also de-duped across all Amazon advertising products (AMG, AAP). The current priority
across all Amazon advertising is as follows:
1. Tracked ASIN ad clicks (any price type) – last click wins
2. Tracked ASIN ad views (CPM/Flat-Fee ads)
3. Brand Halo ASIN ad clicks (any price type)
4. Brand Halo ASIN ad views (CPM/Flat-Fee ads)
5. Tracked ASIN ad views (CPC ads)
6. Brand Halo ASIN ad views (CPC ads)

Sales attribution includes brand halo. Brand halo is a process where sales attribution is expanded beyond
the ASINs specified by the advertiser for their campaign. For Sponsored Products, sales attribution occurs
at the brand code level and does not count Third-Party sales as part of its attribution model. Ordered sales
attribution for Sponsored Products does not exclude any order cancellations, payment failures, or returns.
As a result, attributed sales may be higher than actual shipped sales.

For Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads, attribution happens under the brand code, but allows
extension of the attribution across GLs. Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads do count Third-
Party sales as part of their attribution models. Attributed sales for Headline Search Ads and Product
Display Ads do exclude cancelled orders and payment failures.

Please note this model varies slightly for non-US markets, that sales attribution will not include purchases
that resulted in a credit card decline or were cancelled within 72 hours. If a purchase is connected to a new
Subscribe and Save subscription, that purchase will be included in the sales attribution. Note, only the
initial Subscribe & Save purchase is included.

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Overview of Available Reporting

Report Features

Name, Type, Status, Start and End Date, Budget, Spend, Impressions, Clicks Average CPC,
Campaign Dashboard
Detailed Page Views, Total Sales, ACoS

Headline Search Daily Total Impressions, Total Clicks, CTR, Detail Page Views, Total Spend, Average CPC, Units Sold,
Grain Total Sales, ACoS

Headline Search Keyword Status, Keywords, Match, Bid, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Average CPC, Spend, Sales, ACoS

Campaign Name, Keyword, Customer Search Term, First Day of Impression, Last Day of
Impression, Impressions Resulting in Clicks, Clicks, CTR, Total Spend, Average CPC, Orders
Sponsored Products Auto placed within 14 days of a click, Product Sales within 14 days of a click, Conversion Rate within
Targeting 14 days of a click, Advertised SKU units Ordered within 14 days of click, Same Brand SKU units
Ordered within 14 days of click, Advertised SKU Product Sales within 14 days of click, Same
Brand SKU Product Sales within 14 days of click

Sponsored Products
Status, Keywords, Match, Bid, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Average CPC, Spend, Sales, ACoS
Keyword

Campaign Name, Keyword, Customer Search Term, First Day of Impression, Last Day of
Impression, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Total Spend, Average CPC, Orders placed within 14 days
Sponsored Products of a click, Product Sales within 14 days of a click, Conversion Rate within 14 days of a click,
Manual Targeting Advertised SKU units Ordered within 14 days of click, Same Brand SKU units Ordered within 14
days of click, Advertised SKU Product Sales within 14 days of click, Same Brand SKU Product
Sales within 14 days of click

Sponsored Products
Status, Advertised Product, ASIN, Impressions, Clicks, Average CPC, Spend, Total Sales, ACoS
Advertised Products

Product Display Ad
Total Impressions, Total Clicks, CTR, Total Spend, Average CPC, Sales, ACoS
Category Targeting

Product Display Daily Total Impressions, Total Clicks, CTR, Detail Page Views, Total Spend, Average CPC, Units Sold,
Grain Total Sales, ACoS

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Reporting by Product
Sponsored Products Reporting
Customer Search Term reporting can be accessed under the ‘Reports’ tab, which provides the ability to
review performance data by customer search terms for a given custom date range. Review Search Term
data for any custom range by simply selecting the dates and clicking “Request Report.” Once the report is
ready to download, a link will appear.

The report provides more granular insights across the purchasing funnel after a shopper clicks on the
Amazon Marketing Services ad from a given search term. This includes conversion rates, orders placed,
and product sales. The data is also broken down into orders and sales on the clicked advertised ASIN
versus other ASINs sold by the brand – within the 14 day last-click attribution window.

Since Sponsored Products can also serve on product detail pages, if a shopper clicks on a Sponsored
Products placement on a product detail page, the ASIN associated with that product detail page will
be recorded as the “keyword” that led to the click. Please keep this in mind when reviewing keyword
performance for Sponsored Products campaigns, and, further, consider using these insights when
selecting ASINs to target in product-targeted Product Display Ads campaigns.

ASIN-level Sponsored Products reporting is also available in the ‘Advertised Products’ tab. Note that the
Total Sales figure takes into account brand halo.

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Sponsored Products Reporting Restriction
The reporting tool can only retrieve data up to 60 days before the day the report is requested. Requests
for data older than 60 days will return empty files at this time. Please note, executed reports do not expire,
meaning historical performance can be tracked through the use of multiple reports if required.

Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads Reporting

Date filtered reporting is also available for Headline Search Ads and Product Display Ads, which can
be accessed via the “Reports” tab.

Headline Search and Product Display Ads Reporting Restriction

Unlike that of Sponsored Products, the reporting tool for Headline Search and Product Display Ads can
retrieve data older than 60 days before the day the report is requested. However, the tool can only retrieve
up to 60 days’ worth of data at a time. Please note, executed reports do not expire, meaning historical
performance can be tracked through the use of multiple reports if required.

Product Display Ad Category Targeting Reporting

PDA Category Targeting Reporting is a new dashboard tab that provides performance data of targeted
categories within PDA campaigns.

Reporting for each targeted category includes:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• Average Cost Per Click
• Spend
• Sales
• ACOS

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This functionality helps advertisers gain a better understanding of campaign performance, giving them the
insight they need to optimize active campaigns. They can now pause, enable, or add targeted categories
to existing campaigns in the PDA dashboard.

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Additional Resources
Amazon Stores
Pricing & Eligibility
Amazon Stores is a free self-service product. Vendors are automatically eligible to set up a store.

Restrictions
• Vendors can create multiple Amazon Stores by registering sub-brands in AMS; however, only one
Amazon Store can receive organic traffic for each brand.
• Stores cannot be linked together. Links in Amazon Stores can either drive to other pages within the
same store, or to product detail pages.
• An Amazon Store can contain as many pages as needed to properly showcase a brand. However, the
maxium depth for a store is 3 levels (i.e., Main page > 2nd Level Page > 3rd Level Page).
• Stores are moderated. To obtain approval, Stores must follow basic creative standards. Users can
access a document that contains Amazon Page design best practices, available in AMS Ad Builder.

Creating an Amazon Store

You’ll create your Amazon Store using Store Builder, Amazon’s self-service brand store builder. Amazon
Store Builder is available through ams.amazon.com.

Advertisers can choose from three templates when building their store: Product Grid, Marquee, and
Showcase. These templates feature default content tiles, and can be easily customized to your brand’s
needs. Use text, videos, images, and best-selling products to create a unique, visually-enticing story
about your brand and offerings.

Discoverability on Amazon
Amazon Stores can be discovered within Amazon or used in external marketing channels. On Amazon,
stores can be reached by shoppers through brand by-line and via the Amazon Store’s short URL
(Amazon.com/BRANDNAME).

You can also drive traffic directly to your Amazon Store from your own sites or social media accounts.
Relatedly, shoppers can help drive traffic by sharing Amazon Stores with their friends via Facebook,
Twitter, and Pinterest.

Copy Requirements and Provisions

• Sentence Case: Headlines should be in sentence case for all Headline Search and Product Display
Ads.
• Capitalization: We cannot accept ad copy in ALL CAPS. Capitalized words for common abbreviations
(such as DIY), or where the registered product or brand names are capitalized, are acceptable.
• Ad Copy that combines random capitalized words with lowercase text is not permitted (example:
“THIS headline is GREAT”), unless it is part of a brand name.
• Claims and comparative statements: Avoid superlatives or unsupported/exaggerated claims.
Supporting evidence from an independent source must accompany superlative claims made within
your Store. (Example: “Best Seller in the US, NY Times, March 2016”). The supporting disclosure for

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 the claim must be contained within the product or text tile. Additionally, ad copy cannot denigrate
another company or product.
• Contact information: Amazon Stores cannot include phone numbers, email or physical addresses, nor
link to sites outside of Amazon.
• Dynamic Amazon content: Due to dynamic customer ratings, sales ranking, prices, and savings at
• Amazon, static copy cannot include references to Amazon rating, rank, price, or savings.
• Language: The language of the page should match the language of the main Amazon site.
• Spelling and grammar: All text must be spelled correctly; ASCII art is not acceptable.

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Help
Check the “FAQ” section under the “Help” link in the top right corner of the page.

Click on the “Contact Us” link located in the footer to submit any questions and / or encountered errors.

Include below details in the comments field will be helpful to route the request to the correct teams:
• The Account Name (which appears in the top black navigation bar – BrandABC) and the Campaign
Name (if relevant).
• Include details of your browser and your operating system including version numbers (i.e., Firefox
version 17 on Mac OSX).

Screenshots are always helpful, especially when encountering an error message. Please upload the screen
captures to a file sharing site (i.e., Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud) and send the file share link in
the body of the email.

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Glossary
Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS)
The percent of attributed sales spent on advertising, which is calculated by dividing total spend by total
sales. This is the inverse of RoAS.

ASIN
Amazon has an “Amazon Standard Item Number” for all products that are available on the website. An
ASIN is similar to a stock keeping unit (SKU) or other product item numbers used outside of Amazon.
Products with variations (for example size, color, flavor, quantity) have a Parent ASIN and Child ASINs.
The Parent ASIN is the generic product (for example, Levi’s 501 Jeans). The child ASIN is the specific
variation of the product (Levi’s 501 Jeans size large and color black).
• Replenishment, this item is set up for automatic ordering based on demand.
• NP – New Product, because there is no data on the demand of this product it is vital that you work
directly with Retail prior to driving a campaign to these ASINs – all inventory will have to be ordered
manually until the product becomes PR .
• OB – Obsolete – this product is no longer orderable, this should not be used for an AMG campaign if
there is any expectation to remain in-stock.
• NR – Non-Replenishable, This is designated for Parent ASINs, you will want to ensure you referencing
the Child ASINs.
• IS – In Season, temporary state. Till not be in stock within 6+ weeks. Used for Holiday items that will
not be ordered off peak.
• OS – Off Season – Items that are

Buy Box
The Buy Box refers to the area of the detail page that contains the Add-to-Cart button. On the desktop,
it is almost always an ATF box positioned on the top-side side of the detail page. The seller Amazon
determines is the best fit for the product page is noted as the seller (i.e. winner of the buy box) and items
added with the main ‘add to cart’ button are purchased through this seller. ‘Winning the buy box’ or
being the merchant Amazon features for the product page is a major advantage for sellers on Amazon.
Components factored into winning the buy box include fulfillment method, price, seller rating, shipping
time, order defect rate, late shipment rate, customer response time, and more.

General Ledger Product Group (GL)

Distinct product grouping distinguishing products like books, watches, or video games. The term stands
for General Ledger Product Group.

Prime
ASINs are Prime-eligible (free two-day or less delivery) if they are a part of the Fulfillment by Amazon
(FBA) program. This means that the ASINs are stored as inventory in Amazon’s warehouse and Amazon
can guarantee 2-day shipping. 3P sellers are eligible to participate in FBA but there is a cost associated
with this. Vendors that sell product directly to Amazon are automatically part of the FBA program since
Amazon fulfills and ships those orders. Some 3P seller ASINs may be eligible for Prime if they can
demonstrate that the 2-day shipping requirement is fulfilled. This is not particularly easy to do. Learn
more about how FBA works.

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Subscribe & Save (SNS)
SnS enables Amazon customers to subscribe to receive the product automatically on a regular basis,
saving up to 15% in the process (maximum depending on the product category). This service is especially
effective for brands in CPG with a short lifecycle and categories with lower customer loyalty by reducing
brand switch.

Vendor Powered Coupons (VPCs)

Vendor-Powered Coupons is a self-service mechanism for Amazon vendors to directly upload promotions
into Amazon systems. The promotions are a digital form of a coupon and have a full suite of automated
merchandising available. The full price of the program is supported by the vendor and the savings are
passed through to Amazon customers. While the cost-per-click will still apply per standard AMS auction
dynamics, a coupon clip fee will no longer be applied.

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