Amazon advertising is no longer optional. For sellers who want consistent visibility on the marketplace, paid campaigns have become a core part of the business model. Organic rankings still matter, but in most categories, the top positions in search results are dominated by sponsored placements. Sellers who do not advertise are increasingly invisible to buyers who never scroll past the first few results.
What makes 2026 different from previous years is not that advertising matters, but how much the advertising ecosystem has evolved. Amazon has rolled out new features, expanded access to previously restricted formats, and shifted how its algorithm weighs paid versus organic signals. Sellers who still run their PPC the same way they did two years ago are leaving money on the table. The sellers losing ground are the ones still running 2023 playbooks. The ones gaining share have either built dedicated in-house advertising teams or handed campaign strategy to an Amazon PPC agency that treats these platform shifts as competitive advantages, not inconveniences.
Here are the most important shifts every seller should understand.
Sponsored Products: Smarter Targeting, Higher Stakes
Sponsored Products remains the workhorse of Amazon advertising. It generates the majority of ad revenue for most sellers and delivers the most direct path from impression to purchase. But the format has matured, and basic keyword targeting with manual bid adjustments no longer cuts it at scale.
Amazon has expanded its auto-targeting capabilities significantly. The algorithm now differentiates between close match, loose match, substitutes, and complements with greater precision. For sellers, this means auto campaigns are no longer just a research tool for finding keywords. They can drive meaningful revenue when structured correctly alongside manual campaigns.
At the same time, competition has intensified. Average cost-per-click in major categories has risen steadily, making efficient campaign structure more important than ever. Sellers who run flat campaign structures with hundreds of keywords in a single ad group are paying a premium for lack of organization. The shift toward single-keyword or small-cluster ad groups allows tighter bid control and cleaner data, which translates directly into lower wasted spend.
Sponsored Brands: From Awareness to Performance
Sponsored Brands used to be treated as a brand-awareness format. Logo at the top of search results, nice to have but hard to measure. That perception is outdated. Amazon has added features that turn Sponsored Brands into a genuine performance channel.
Sponsored Brands Video is the most significant addition. Short product videos that autoplay directly in search results generate substantially higher click-through rates than static formats. In many categories, video ads outperform standard Sponsored Products on both CTR and conversion rate. For sellers who have not tested video yet, this is one of the highest-impact changes available right now.
Amazon has also improved the Brand Store experience. Sponsored Brands campaigns can now link directly to specific Brand Store pages rather than just the storefront homepage. This allows sellers to create targeted landing experiences for different keyword clusters. A customer searching for “wireless earbuds for running” can land on a curated Brand Store page featuring the relevant product line, rather than the entire catalog. The result is a more focused shopping experience and higher conversion rates.
Sponsored Display: Retargeting Gets Serious
Sponsored Display has evolved from a basic retargeting tool into a flexible audience-targeting format. Sellers can now reach customers based on purchase behavior, browsing history, and interest segments, both on Amazon and across thousands of external websites and apps in Amazon’s advertising network.
The most valuable use case remains retargeting: reaching customers who viewed a product but did not purchase. These audiences have already shown intent, and bringing them back with a display ad is one of the most cost-efficient advertising tactics available on the platform. Sellers who are not running retargeting campaigns are losing conversions that require minimal spend to capture.
A newer development is contextual targeting on competitor product pages. Sponsored Display allows sellers to place ads directly on the detail pages of competing products. For brands in crowded categories, this is a powerful tool for intercepting customers who are still comparing options. The key is selecting competitor targets strategically rather than blanketing every competing ASIN, which dilutes budget and reduces relevance.
DSP Access: No Longer Just for Big Brands
Amazon’s Demand-Side Platform was historically reserved for large advertisers with six-figure monthly budgets and managed-service agreements. That barrier has dropped significantly. Amazon now offers self-service DSP access to a broader range of sellers, and several third-party platforms provide DSP access at lower minimum spends.
For sellers doing $200K or more in monthly revenue, DSP opens targeting capabilities that other Amazon ad formats cannot match. The platform uses Amazon’s first-party purchase data to build audiences based on actual buying behavior, not inferred interests. Sellers can target customers who bought from a competitor in the last 90 days, reach shoppers who browse related categories but have not yet purchased, or re-engage past customers with new product launches.
DSP also extends Amazon advertising beyond the marketplace itself. Display and video ads can run on streaming platforms, publisher websites, and mobile apps, all targeted using Amazon’s data. For brands looking to build awareness beyond Amazon while still attributing results back to marketplace sales, DSP is the most powerful tool available.
Budget Allocation: Thinking in Portfolios
Perhaps the most important strategic shift in 2026 is how successful sellers think about budget allocation. Rather than treating each campaign type in isolation, top performers manage their advertising as an integrated portfolio.
Sponsored Products captures high-intent search traffic. Sponsored Brands builds visibility and drives Brand Store traffic. Sponsored Display retargets and conquests. DSP extends reach to new audiences. Each format serves a different function in the customer journey, and the budget split between them should reflect the seller’s current priorities: launching new products, defending market share, scaling profitably, or building brand equity.
Sellers who allocate 100% of their budget to Sponsored Products are not optimizing for growth. They are optimizing for the safest, most measurable channel while ignoring the formats that drive long-term competitive advantage.
Conclusion
Amazon PPC in 2026 rewards sellers who treat advertising as a strategic discipline, not a set-and-forget operation. The formats have matured, the targeting has become more sophisticated, and the competition has raised the baseline for what good looks like. Sellers who adapt their strategies to these changes will find that Amazon advertising remains one of the most profitable customer acquisition channels in e-commerce. Those who do not will pay more for less.
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