Sponsored Display is the sponsored ad type most sellers set up last and understand least. It does not target keywords. Its ads do not always look like listings. It can show up on a competitor's product page, on Amazon's homepage, or on a news site. And it is the only self-service way to run audience-based advertising without the minimums that come with Amazon DSP.

This guide covers what it is, where the ads go, how it bills, and the three campaigns that earn their cost before any of the more ambitious ones.

What Sponsored Display is

A display ad format for brand-registered sellers, built in the same console as Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands. The ad is generated from your listing (image, title, price, rating) with optional custom headline, image and logo. It can appear on Amazon product pages, in search results in display slots, on Amazon's homepage and other owned properties, and on third-party sites and apps through Amazon's network.

Where Sponsored Products targets what a shopper typed, Sponsored Display targets who the shopper is or what they looked at. That is the whole difference, and it changes everything about how the campaigns are built and read. The overview of sponsored ad types places it beside the other two.

The two targeting modes

Contextual targeting

Formerly called product targeting. You choose products, categories or brands, and your ad appears on and around those product pages. Target your own products to defend their pages. Target competitors to appear on theirs. Target complementary products to appear beside things bought alongside yours.

This is the mode closest to Sponsored Products' product targeting, and the campaigns behave similarly: intent is moderate, the shopper is already looking at something, and your product's comparison to that something decides the click.

Audience targeting

You choose a group of shoppers rather than a place. Two families:

Views and purchases remarketing. Shoppers who viewed your products, viewed similar products, or bought from you, within a lookback window you set. This is retargeting, and it is the campaign type that justifies the format for most sellers.

Amazon audiences. In-market segments (shopping a category now), lifestyle segments (long-run patterns), interests, and life events. Simplified versions of what DSP offers, with less control and no minimum spend.

How it bills and optimizes

Each campaign has an optimization setting that decides both what Amazon aims for and how you pay.

Optimize for conversions: Amazon shows the ad to shoppers it predicts will buy. Billed per click. The default for most seller use.

Optimize for page visits: aims for clicks rather than purchases. Billed per click. Useful for new products that need traffic to build their own retargeting pool.

Optimize for reach: aims for impressions among the audience. Billed per thousand impressions. Awareness only; read it on reach and later lift, not on ACoS.

Mixing these up is the most common Sponsored Display mistake: a reach campaign judged on ACoS looks terrible, and a conversion campaign judged on impressions looks weak. Decide what each campaign is for and read it on that.

The three campaigns to run first

1. Retarget your own product viewers

Audience: viewed your products, last 30 days, purchasers excluded. Optimize for conversions. This reaches shoppers who were interested enough to look and did not buy, on and off Amazon, for a modest per-click cost. It is the clearest win in the format and the right place to learn how the ads perform for your catalog.

2. Defend your own product pages

Contextual: target your own ASINs. Your ad appears on your own product pages, in the slots where competitors' Sponsored Display ads would otherwise appear. Cheap, high-converting, and it keeps the shopper who is already on your page from being pulled to a neighbor.

3. Target the competitors you beat

Contextual: target competing ASINs where your product has a clear advantage the shopper can see in the ad (price, rating, a feature in the title). Your ad appears on their page. Conversion depends entirely on that visible advantage; targeting competitors you do not beat on anything visible wastes the clicks.

Run these three for a month before adding in-market audiences, similar-product remarketing, or reach campaigns. They establish what the format does for your products at the lowest cost, and they build the data the later campaigns need.

Creative

The auto-generated ad is fine to start. The custom options, a headline, a lifestyle image, and your logo, tend to lift click-through on off-Amazon placements where the listing-style ad looks out of place. Keep the headline to a use case or benefit, as with Sponsored Brands. Test the custom creative against the default on the retargeting campaign, where the sample is cleanest.

Managing it

Sponsored Display campaigns need less keyword maintenance than Sponsored Products (there are no keywords) and more audience maintenance. Lookback windows need review as the catalog and season change. Competitor targets need review as prices and listings shift.

Budgets and schedules behave like any other campaign. Retargeting campaigns in particular benefit from dayparting because the shoppers in a views audience browse on a predictable daily pattern, and event windows change that pattern. Treat them in the same rule sets as the rest of the account, with their own schedule where the data supports it.

When to move to DSP

When the three campaigns above are working and the constraint is reach or control. DSP offers more placements, more audience granularity, better frequency control, and video, at the cost of minimums and a managed or agency setup. The DSP versus sponsored ads comparison covers the decision. For many brands, Sponsored Display is enough for a long time.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Sponsored Display and Sponsored Products?

Sponsored Products targets searches and product pages with an ad that looks like a listing. Sponsored Display targets audiences (shoppers who viewed or bought certain products, or who are in a category) and products, with an ad that can appear on and off Amazon. Sponsored Display reaches shoppers who are not searching right now; Sponsored Products reaches ones who are.

Does Sponsored Display require Brand Registry?

Yes. Like Sponsored Brands, it is available to sellers enrolled in Brand Registry. Sponsored Products is the only sponsored ad type with no brand requirement.

Is Sponsored Display cost per click or cost per impression?

Both, depending on the campaign's optimization setting. Campaigns optimized for conversions or page visits bill per click. Campaigns optimized for reach bill per thousand impressions. Choose based on what you want the campaign to do and read the results against that choice.

Off Hours runs dayparting, budget and event rules across every sponsored ad type in the account, Sponsored Display included. Start a free 14-day trial.