Win the shelf.
Senior-led Amazon Ads from a verified Amazon Ads Partner: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and Amazon DSP, run against your margin rather than ACoS alone.
ACoS is not profit.
Most Amazon accounts are managed to ACoS, advertising cost of sale, the share of ad-attributed sales spent on ads. It is a useful number and a poor target, because it ignores your margin, Amazon's fees and the sales ads take credit for that would have happened anyway, such as someone searching for your brand by name.
The work sets each product's target from its margin after fees, separates branded searches from the searches where you win new customers, and keeps the ads in step with the listing, the price and the stock, because on Amazon an ad can only sell what those allow.
What an Amazon Ads engagement covers.
- Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display
- Amazon DSP, including Prime Video ads in the UK
- Margin-based targets for each product
- Branded and new-customer search kept apart
- Listing and content readiness
- Amazon Marketing Cloud analysis, where eligible
- Budget pacing around stock and seasons
Inside the same profit model.
Amazon runs as part of the same profit-first plan as Google and Meta, so budget moves to wherever a customer is won most profitably, rather than each channel defending its own number.
Targets are set product by product from real margin, reviewed weekly, and reported against total sales as well as ad-attributed sales, so you can see whether advertising is growing the business or buying sales you would have had anyway.
Verified Amazon Ads Partner, with Amazon run inside the same profit model as every other channel.
Amazon Ads questions.
What ACoS should we target?
The one your margin allows. A high-margin product can carry a higher ACoS profitably than a thin-margin one, so targets are set for each product, after Amazon's fees, rather than as one figure for the whole account.
Should we bid on our own brand name on Amazon?
Usually, in moderation. Competitors can bid on your brand, so a defensive presence protects the shelf, but branded sales are reported separately so they do not flatter the account's overall results.
Do you work with Seller Central and Vendor Central?
Yes. Amazon Ads runs for both sellers and vendors. The reporting and the levers differ between the two, and the work adapts to whichever relationship you have with Amazon.
One budget, every platform.
Each platform is run inside one paid media plan, held by the same senior practitioner, so budget moves to wherever a customer is won most profitably. How the paid media practice works.
Start with a conversation.
A proper conversation with the person who would do the work. Tell me what you run on Amazon Ads today, or are thinking of starting, and you will get an honest read on what I would change, what I would leave alone, and where the real upside is.
Speak with NicThe senior read,
once a week.
Most marketing newsletters are noise on a schedule. This is not that. Once a week I send a short, considered read on the shifts that actually change what you should do, across the AI shift, PPC, technical SEO and analytics. Filtered, weighted and signed off by me before it goes out. The judgement is mine, and now you can hear every edition in my own voice.
Nic CraneFounder, The Crane Consultancy
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