Amazon Sponsored Display is the self-service ad type that shows your product to shoppers who viewed it or similar products, and to Amazon audiences, on product pages, the home page and some sites off Amazon. It needs Brand Registry, can bill per click or per thousand viewable impressions, and its cost-control setting decides whether it is cheap retargeting or a runaway budget.
Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands wait for a search. Sponsored Display follows the shopper: it can show your ad to someone who looked at your listing last week and did not buy, to someone who viewed a competitor's product, or to an Amazon audience such as in-market for kitchen appliances, wherever they are on Amazon and on some third-party sites and apps. It is the only self-service type with audience targeting, which our audience targeting guide covers in detail.
It also shows on your own product page, which defends the slot where competitors would otherwise place their Sponsored Products ad.
Measure it differently from search ads. A retargeting click comes from someone who already knew the product, so its ACoS is often good; an audience campaign reaches strangers, so its ACoS is usually worse and its value shows up as detail page views and new-to-brand orders. Keep the two in separate campaigns so one number does not hide the other, and compare each against your break-even ACoS, not against Sponsored Products.
| Option | Who sees the ad | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Views remarketing | Shoppers who viewed your product or similar ones in a lookback window | Bringing back non-buyers |
| Purchases remarketing | Shoppers who bought from you or a related category | Repeat purchase and cross-sell |
| Amazon audiences | In-market, lifestyle, interest and life-event segments | Reach beyond your listing's traffic |
| Product targeting | Shoppers on chosen ASINs or categories | Conquesting competitor pages |
Amazon's help pages describe each option; availability of some audience segments differs by marketplace, so check the console for Amazon India before planning around one.
When you create a Sponsored Display campaign, Amazon asks what to optimise for: page visits (billed per click), conversions (per click, bids adjusted toward likely buyers) or viewable impressions (billed per thousand viewable impressions, vCPM). The vCPM option charges whether or not anyone clicks. A Seller Central India forum thread titled Auto populated Sponsored Display campaign charged 50x describes a campaign, pre-filled by the console, that spent far more than the seller expected. Read the optimisation setting and the bid before you save.
For a first campaign, choose optimise for conversions with views remarketing on your own ASINs. It spends slowly and shows whether retargeting converts for your product before you pay for reach.
Both are eligibility requirements. A YouTube tutorial on fixing Ineligible Sponsored Display ads has over 11,000 views because the Buy Box check is missed so often.
Optimise for conversions, low bid, seven-day lookback. This is the cheapest audience you have.
You are asking their shoppers to compare; give them a reason.
Reach campaigns run at a higher ACoS and should never share a budget with retargeting.
Cut the groups above break-even; scale the ones below it.
BlooprintAI creates Sponsored Display campaigns for Amazon India from the same CSV as Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, and shows targets from all three in one table with spend, ACoS and orders. You can filter Sponsored Display targets above your ACoS ceiling and lower bids or pause them in one action after a summary. It does not change the optimisation setting or bids on its own.
Build Amazon SP, SB and SD campaigns from one CSV instead of one at a time in the console.
Learn more →Work out the ACoS at which an Amazon ad sale makes zero profit, from price, fees and cost.
Learn more →Views and purchases remarketing, Amazon audiences and where they are available.
Learn more →Sponsored Products, Brands, Display and DSP: who can run each and what they cost.
Learn more →A self-service ad type that shows your product to shoppers who viewed it or similar products, and to Amazon audiences, on product pages, the home page and some sites off Amazon. It needs Brand Registry.
On your own and competitors' product pages, on the Amazon home and category pages, and on third-party sites and apps for remarketing audiences.
Usually the optimise for viewable impressions setting, which bills per thousand impressions whether or not anyone clicks. A Seller Central India forum thread describes a pre-filled campaign that charged 50 times what the seller expected.
No. Sponsored Display is self-service with per-click or vCPM billing and product ads. DSP is display and video bought per thousand impressions, usually through a managed account. Our DSP vs PPC guide compares them.
Yes. It creates Sponsored Display campaigns from a CSV and shows their targets alongside Sponsored Products and Brands for bulk bid changes after a summary.
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