AmazonAdstunedtoTACoS,notvanityACoS.
Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and DSP, scaled against true total advertising cost of sales. For DTC brands selling on Amazon alongside Shopify, Google Shopping, and Meta.
The realities behind the channel.
ACoS is a vanity metric. TACoS pays the bills.
Ad-sales ratio tells you nothing about whether your brand is growing organically. We optimise to total advertising cost of sales, where ads, organic rank, and brand momentum compound.
Sponsored Products is just the floor
Most brands stop at Sponsored Products. The lifts compound when SP, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display work together. We architect all three around your hero ASINs.
Cross-channel attribution is the real edge
Amazon-attributed traffic from Google + Meta is one of the highest-leverage levers in DTC. We connect Brand Referral Bonus, Amazon Attribution, and Google/Meta clicks so credit lands where it belongs, the same cross-channel discipline behind our e commerce ppc services.
Every lever inside the channel.
Sponsored Products (manual + auto)
Keyword harvest from auto into manual. Negative keyword discipline. Bid placement (top-of-search vs. rest). Single-keyword campaigns for your hero ASINs.
Sponsored Brands + headline search
Brand defence at the top of the SERP, video ads where they qualify, store spotlight slots for catalogue depth.
Sponsored Display + retargeting
Product-targeted and audience-targeted display, on-Amazon and off-Amazon retargeting, lookalike modelling via DSP for larger budgets.
Amazon DSP (where budget supports it)
Programmatic display + audio + video for brands with $30K+/mo in Amazon ad spend. Audience strategy beyond keyword surface area.
Brand Store + A+ content
Conversion-rate work that makes ad clicks worth more. Module strategy, hero ASIN promotion, mobile-first layouts.
Cross-channel attribution
Amazon Attribution tags, Brand Referral Bonus claims, Google/Meta deep-links into Amazon storefronts, GA4 + Amazon stitching where possible.
Four steps from audit to scale.
ASIN + portfolio audit
Hero ASINs, profit-tier mapping, listing health, keyword cannibalization. Where Amazon ads are wasting spend before we touch a bid.
Ad-type architecture
Sponsored Products structure (auto-to-manual harvest, single-keyword for heroes), Sponsored Brands for SERP defence, Sponsored Display for retargeting.
TACoS modelling
True total-advertising-cost-of-sales (TACoS) targets per hero ASIN, with organic-rank weighting. Quarterly re-baseline as ranks compound.
Cross-channel stitching
Brand Referral Bonus, Amazon Attribution tags, Google + Meta deep-links, weekly cross-channel report so credit lands where it belongs.
The leaks we find in 9 of 10 audits.
- Optimising to ACoS instead of TACoS
- Letting auto campaigns hoard budget that should move to manual
- Running one big keyword campaign instead of hero-ASIN single-keyword structure
- Skipping Sponsored Display retargeting and leaving the funnel half-built
- Not claiming Brand Referral Bonus on external traffic
- Treating Amazon and Google as separate worlds when they share the same buyer
TACoS down 38%, Amazon revenue up 2.4x
Multi-brand DTC portfolio · eCommerce (anonymised)
How we compare.
| What we optimise | Typical agency | iClick |
|---|---|---|
| Optimisation metric | ACoS only | TACoS, weighted by organic rank |
| Ad-type coverage | Sponsored Products only | SP · SB · SD architected together |
| Keyword harvest | Quarterly export | Weekly auto-to-manual promotion |
| Hero-ASIN structure | All SKUs in one campaign | Single-keyword campaigns for heroes |
| Cross-channel attribution | Siloed Amazon reporting | Brand Referral Bonus + Amazon Attribution + GA4 |
| DSP | Not offered | Available for $30K+/mo budgets |
What are Amazon's digital advertising solutions?
Amazon's digital advertising solutions are four products that share one auction and one retail signal. Sponsored Products places keyword and product-targeted ads in search results and on product pages. Sponsored Brands runs headline and video placements that carry the brand rather than a single ASIN. Sponsored Display retargets shoppers on and off Amazon. Amazon DSP buys display and video inventory programmatically, including audiences built from Amazon's own purchase data. The first three are self-service; DSP is the managed layer that typically opens up at higher budgets.
Are Amazon display ads pay per click?
Partly. Sponsored Display is bought on a cost-per-click auction, so you pay only when a shopper clicks, which makes it directly comparable to the rest of your pay per click reporting. Amazon DSP is different: its inventory is bought programmatically on an impression basis, priced by CPM, so it is measured on view-through and downstream purchase rather than click cost. Treating the two as one line item is a common reporting error, because a CPM channel judged on click metrics always looks like it is failing.
How do Sponsored Products, Brands, Display, and DSP work together?
Sponsored Products is the floor: it captures demand that already exists for your hero ASINs. Sponsored Brands widens that to the category, so shoppers who have not decided on a product still meet you first. Sponsored Display recaptures the ones who looked and left, including on competitor listings. DSP reaches audiences before they search at all. Run alone, each looks mediocre. Run together and judged on total advertising cost of sale, the compounding shows up as organic rank, which is the part ACoS never sees.
Common questions.
Channels that compound each other.
See what your account is leaving on the table.
47-point written audit. Five business days. No sales call.
