How to Set Up Amazon Sponsored Ads (2027 Update)

A new Amazon campaign can burn through a month of budget in days, because daily budgets are averaged across the month and not paced through the day. Setup choices made in the first ten minutes decide whether that spend finds buyers or search terms you never wanted.

Amazon has changed where several of those choices live. Sponsored Display now sits under Amazon's display ads flow, agents can draft campaigns from a prompt, and Sponsored Brands has a model-managed targeting option. This guide walks through setup for each ad type in today's console and shows where each one serves. For the console and agent announcements themselves, see our unBoxed 2026 and Accelerate 2026 recap.

Quick answer: three ad types, three places your ads serve

Pick the ad type by where you need to show up, then set it up in the order below.

• Sponsored Products: single-listing ads that serve at the top of, alongside and within Amazon shopping results and on product detail pages. Start here.
• Sponsored Brands: logo, headline and product ads that serve at the top of search results, on mobile search and on the Amazon home page. Requires Brand Registry for professional sellers.
• Display ads (formerly Sponsored Display): audience and contextual ads that serve across Amazon properties such as Twitch, Fire TV and Echo Show, plus the open internet.
• The opportunity: Amazon's setup flows and agents now get a first campaign live faster than the manual builds most guides describe.
• The risk: a $100 daily budget can produce up to $3,100 in clicks over a 31-day month, and dynamic bids can raise a bid by up to 100%, so defaults need a decision, not a click-through.

Our detailed walk-through of the first ad type is in the Amazon Sponsored Products guide. This page stays on setup across all three.

Check account, brand and catalog eligibility before you build anything

Most failed first campaigns are eligibility problems, not setup problems. Confirm these before opening the console.

Sponsored Products needs a Featured Offer

Amazon lists professional sellers, vendors, book vendors, Kindle Direct Publishing authors and agencies as eligible. Products must sit in an eligible category and qualify for the Featured Offer (the Buy Box). Adult, used, refurbished and closed-category products are excluded. If a listing loses the Featured Offer, its ad stops serving, so fix pricing or fulfillment first.

Sponsored Brands needs Brand Registry

Vendors, agencies, book vendors, KDP authors and professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry can run Sponsored Brands. If you are not registered, skip to Sponsored Products and register the brand in parallel. Check the same product exclusions as above.

Display ads have the loosest requirement

Amazon's advertising FAQ says display, video and audio ads are open to businesses whether or not they sell on Amazon. Confirm category restrictions in the console at the time you build, because Amazon notes that products and features vary by marketplace.

Set up Sponsored Products first, because its decisions carry into the other two

Amazon's own getting-started path for Sponsored Products is six steps. These are the steps with the decisions that matter filled in. Verify each label against your console before you click, since Amazon has been moving menus.

1. Register for sponsored ads and open the console. Sign in, select Create campaign, and choose Sponsored Products.
2. Add the products to advertise. Group only ASINs from the same category in one campaign, and group by price range and conversion performance so a $15 item and a $150 item do not share a bid. Amazon recommends advertising at least two suggested products.
3. Choose targeting. Automatic targeting is the fastest start, with close match, loose match, substitutes and complements. Manual targeting gives control over keywords and products. Run both: Amazon recommends manual campaigns alongside automatic ones, with exact, phrase and broad match types. Our guides on automatic targeting and keyword match types cover the mechanics.
4. Pick a bidding strategy and default bid. Choose fixed bids or dynamic bids (up and down, or down only). Up and down can raise a bid by up to 100% for all placements, so a $1.00 bid can become $2.00. Set the default bid from your target ACoS; our free ACoS calculator does the math.
5. Set campaign settings. Name the campaign, set the start date, leave the end date empty for always-on, and enter a daily budget. Amazon suggests about $10 a day to begin.
6. Add negative targets and launch. Add negative keywords, products or brands before the first click. The negative keywords guide shows what to add on day one.

Step six is the one that decays. Negatives, bid changes and keyword promotion from the search term report are weekly work on every ad group, and that is where most accounts slip after launch.

Sponsored Brands and display ads add creative and audience decisions

Sponsored Brands setup centers on format and landing page

The setup path matches Sponsored Products (Create campaign, then Sponsored Brands), with three additions: a creative format, a landing destination, and a pricing model. Amazon lists video ads (autoplay, up to three products, linkable to a Brand Store), static image or collection ads, and free AI image and video generation tools. Pricing runs on cost per click, cost per 1,000 viewable impressions (vCPM), or reserve share of voice, which has a minimum spend commitment Amazon does not publish on its product page. CPC and vCPM campaigns have no minimum spend beyond the daily budget floor. For video specs and formats, see our Sponsored Brands video guide.

Theme targeting replaces keyword lists with model-managed groups

Amazon introduced theme targeting for Sponsored Brands on January 2, 2024. Each targeting group bundles keywords and keeps optimizing them with Amazon's machine learning. The two groups are keywords related to your brand and keywords related to your landing pages. Settings come pre-selected with suggested bids, and a campaign can start with one group and a single bid. It is available to vendors and registered sellers through the console and the Amazon Ads API. Use it to launch quickly, then compare its search terms against your manual campaigns before you scale it.

Display ads now start from a different menu

Amazon's Sponsored Display page says the product is now called display ads. New campaigns start under Campaigns, Create Campaign, then Display under Display, Video, and Audio. Existing Sponsored Display campaigns keep running and can be managed inside Amazon Ads Agent. Creative can be Amazon-generated or your own. Use display for retargeting and for audiences who have not searched your keywords; our Sponsored Products vs Sponsored Display comparison covers when to add it.

Budget and bid defaults decide how fast you learn

These are the defaults that change the outcome of a first campaign. Figures come from Amazon's advertising FAQ, product pages and best-practices guide.

Costs vary by category and season, so use our Amazon PPC cost breakdown for realistic CPC ranges before you set bids.

After the first two weeks, change five things

Two to three weeks gives enough data to act. Work through these in order.

1. Promote converting search terms. Move winners from the search term report into manual campaigns as exact match, and raise their bids.
2. Cut waste. Add negatives for terms with clicks and no orders, lower bids on weak performers, and pause underperforming ASINs.
3. Re-check the Featured Offer. Any ASIN that lost it is spending on nothing.
4. Review budget pacing. Raise budgets on campaigns that run out early with good returns, and lower overfunded ones.
5. Layer in the next ad type. Add Sponsored Brands once Sponsored Products shows which terms convert, and add display for retargeting.

Amazon's agents and theme targets speed up setup and still need your standard

At unBoxed 2026, Amazon announced a unified campaign manager that brings the DSP and the ads console into one workflow, plus agents that can build campaigns, recommend targeting and generate creative from natural-language prompts, according to MediaPost's coverage. It also reported a multi-format campaign mode that sets up Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, display and streaming TV from a single prompt, and conversational ad prompts in beta for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands.

The opportunity is a faster, cheaper first draft of a campaign. The limit is that an agent builds from your prompt and Amazon's data, not from your margin, inventory cover or Buy Box status. Treat its output as a draft: check ASIN groupings, budget, bid strategy and negatives against the steps above before launch.

Where Qinetix and Qore take over the weekly work

The steps above get a campaign live. Step six, setting negatives, and the weekly search-term review and bid changes that follow it, is where manual accounts fall behind.

Qinetix, our platform for ads automation, dynamic pricing and DSP, handles that cycle across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and display, including bidding on Sponsored Products theme targets. Qore, our product for workflow intelligence, is where you turn a review you do by hand, such as "cut any term with 15 clicks and no orders", into a workflow that runs itself. Qore's assistant, Q, helps you shape that standard.

Honest limit: neither decides your target ACoS or which ad type deserves budget. You set that standard. Actions default to manual approval, and autonomy is available once you trust the workflow. Qore is in open beta, and you can sign up here, or book a walkthrough to see it on your account.

Conclusion: launch Sponsored Products first, cap the risk, and review weekly

Start with Sponsored Products on products that hold the Featured Offer. Use a modest daily budget, a deliberate bidding strategy, and negatives from day one. Add Sponsored Brands if you are Brand Registry enrolled, and display for retargeting once you have conversion data. Judge nothing before two to three weeks, then change the five things above. Let Amazon's agents draft, and keep the decisions about budget and bids with you.