ARA cheat sheet

Retail readiness means the ASIN is in stock, buyable, has a featured offer (Buy Box), a primary image, and content above Amazon's completeness thresholds before ads are launched.

Advertising eligibility requires the product to be in a supported category, new (not used), and have a valid featured offer; ads pause automatically when the offer loses the Buy Box.

The featured offer (Buy Box) winner is determined by price, availability, fulfillment method, and seller metrics; Sponsored Products ads only serve while the advertised ASIN holds the featured offer.

In-stock rate below roughly 95% on advertised ASINs is a leading indicator of wasted spend; out-of-stock ASINs stop serving and lose organic rank momentum.

Account structure best practice: separate campaigns by ad product, targeting type, and margin or goal tier so budgets and bids can be controlled independently.

Naming conventions should encode marketplace, ad product, targeting type, match type, and launch date so reports can be filtered without manual tagging.

Amazon Attribution measures off-Amazon traffic (search, social, display, email) into Amazon using tagged links; it is separate from ad-console reporting.

Brand Registry unlocks Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, A+ Content, Stores, and Brand Analytics; without it, only Sponsored Products and DSP are available.

Sponsored Products is keyword- and product-targeted CPC advertising that appears in search results and on product detail pages; it is available to sellers and vendors.

Match types: exact matches close variants of the keyword; phrase requires the phrase in order; broad matches related terms, synonyms, and word order variations.

Manual keyword targeting gives bid control per keyword; automatic targeting lets Amazon match to keywords and product pages and is useful for discovery.

Negative exact blocks a specific term; negative phrase blocks the phrase and any query containing it; negatives apply at campaign level and override positives.

Product targeting (ASIN or category) places ads on detail pages; refine with negative product targeting to exclude low-converting ASINs.

Dynamic bidding (down only) lowers bids for clicks less likely to convert; (up and down) raises bids up to +100% for top-of-search placements.

Placement modifiers adjust bids for top-of-search and product-page placements as a percentage on top of the base bid.

Search term report shows actual customer queries; promote converting terms to exact match and add non-converting terms as negatives.

Sponsored Brands shows a headline, brand logo, and a product collection (or video) in search results; it requires Brand Registry and drives to a Store, landing page, or product list.

Creative formats include Product Collection, Store Spotlight, and Video; video creative typically earns higher engagement but requires a hosted video asset.

Sponsored Brands keywords support broad, phrase, and exact match; automatic targeting is also available for discovery.

Bidding is CPC with placement modifiers for top-of-search; bids compete on keyword-level relevance and creative quality.

Sponsored Brands reports include impressions, clicks, CTR, spend, sales, ACOS, ROAS, and new-to-brand metrics for brand-launch measurement.

New-to-brand (NTB) metrics count orders from customers who have not purchased the brand in the prior 12 months, useful for brand-growth goals.

Use Sponsored Brands for upper-funnel brand awareness and Store traffic; use Sponsored Products for direct conversion on specific ASINs.

Landing page choice matters: Stores pages and curated product lists convert better than generic search results for brand campaigns.

Sponsored Display is a self-service display ad product for sellers and vendors that targets audiences and products on and off Amazon.

Targeting options include views remarketing (people who viewed the product), purchases remarketing, in-market audiences, and product/ASIN targeting.

Sponsored Display can serve on Amazon detail pages, home page, and off-Amazon third-party sites through Amazon's demand network.

Bidding is CPC with optional viewable-impression (vCPM) bidding for awareness goals; vCPM charges per 1,000 viewable impressions.

Audience targeting uses Amazon shopper signals (in-market, lifestyle, views/purchases remarketing) rather than keywords.

Sponsored Display reports include detail-page views, add-to-cart, and new-to-brand metrics in addition to clicks and sales.

Use Sponsored Display for defensive conquesting on competitor detail pages and for remarketing to cart abandoners.

Negative product targeting excludes competitor or low-value ASINs; use it to control placement quality in product targeting campaigns.

Sponsored TV delivers non-skippable video ads on streaming TV (Fire TV, IMDb TV/Freevee, and third-party apps) with a self-service console for brands.

Streaming TV ads are bought on a CPM basis with audience and content targeting; measurement includes reach, frequency, and brand-lift studies.

Sponsored TV supports audience targeting by in-market segments, lifestyle, and Amazon shopper signals; it is upper-funnel and not click-driven.

Creative must be video; ad length and format are constrained by the streaming placement, so plan assets before launch.

Streaming TV measurement emphasizes reach, frequency, and view-through conversions rather than last-click ROAS.

Budget pacing for streaming TV is impression-based; set a daily or total budget and cap frequency to avoid over-delivery.

Use streaming TV to build awareness and pair with Sponsored Products or DSP retargeting to capture demand it generates.

Amazon DSP is a demand-side platform for programmatic display, video, and audio ads on Amazon and third-party sites, available to advertisers and agencies.

DSP buys on impressions (CPM) with goal-based bidding (CPC, CPA, ROAS, or viewable impressions) rather than keyword CPC.

Audience targeting includes Amazon shopper segments (in-market, lifestyle), advertiser-owned audiences (remarketing, lookalikes), and third-party segments.

Supply sources include Amazon-owned properties, Amazon Publisher Services, and third-party exchanges; deals can be private marketplace or open auction.

Line items define budget, flight dates, bid strategy, and inventory; orders group line items under a single advertiser.

DSP reporting includes impressions, clicks, CTR, CPM, detail-page views, add-to-cart, purchases, ROAS, and new-to-brand metrics.

Amazon DSP can target by ASIN (product targeting) to reach shoppers who viewed or purchased specific products.

Frequency caps limit impressions per user per time window; use them to control waste in awareness campaigns.

Attribution models include last-touch, first-touch, and multi-touch; Amazon Ads console reports default to a 14-day attribution window for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands.

Attribution windows: Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands use 14-day click and 14-day view (view-through for Sponsored Brands/Display); DSP uses 14-day click and 14-day view by default.

ACOS = ad spend / attributed sales; ROAS = attributed sales / ad spend; TACOS = total ad spend / total sales (including organic).

CTR = clicks / impressions; CVR = orders / clicks; CPC = spend / clicks; CPM = spend / impressions × 1,000.

New-to-brand metrics measure orders from customers who have not bought the brand in the prior 12 months and are available in Sponsored Brands and DSP reports.

Amazon Attribution uses tagged links to measure off-Amazon traffic and reports click-through, detail-page views, add-to-cart, and purchases by channel.

Brand Analytics (search terms, market basket, item comparison) is available to Brand Registered sellers and complements ad-console reporting.

Reconcile ad-console sales against business reports because attribution windows and organic sales are counted differently.

Budget is set at campaign level and shared across ad groups; a campaign pauses when daily budget is exhausted, so split high- and low-priority campaigns.

Bid strategy options: dynamic bids down only, dynamic bids up and down, and fixed bids; choose down only for efficiency, up and down for top-of-search visibility.

Placement modifiers raise bids for top-of-search and product pages; cap total bid at base bid × (1 + modifier) × dynamic bid adjustment.

Optimization loop: harvest converting search terms into exact-match campaigns, add negatives for wasted spend, and adjust bids by ACOS versus target.

Target ACOS = (ad spend / ad sales); set a break-even ACOS from product margin to define the ceiling for profitable bidding.

Budget pacing: monitor spend-to-date versus budget-to-date and dayparting; reallocate budget toward campaigns with ROAS above target.

Portfolio bidding lets you set a shared budget and bid strategy across campaigns to manage spend at the portfolio level.

A/B test one variable at a time (creative, bid, targeting) and use statistically meaningful sample sizes before scaling changes.