Ask five Amazon sellers how they split budget between Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display, and you'll usually get five different answers — most of them wrong. The most common mistake we see when we audit new accounts isn't bad bidding or messy keyword lists. It's sellers running one ad type well and ignoring the other two entirely, or spreading budget evenly across all three without understanding what each one is actually for.
These aren't interchangeable options. Each ad type sits at a different point in the customer journey and does a job the other two can't do. Get the mix right and your ad spend works at every stage of the funnel — from someone who's never heard of your brand to someone with your product already in their cart on a competitor's page. Get it wrong and you're either invisible outside of search, or burning budget on placements that were never going to convert.
The Three Ad Types at a Glance
Before deciding how to split budget, you need to understand what each format is built to do.
Sponsored Products
Keyword and product-targeted ads that appear in search results and on product pages, styled to match organic listings. Bottom-of-funnel, purchase-intent driven. Available to every seller and vendor.
Sponsored Brands
Banner-style ads at the top of search results showing your logo, a custom headline, and multiple products — or a video. Mid-funnel, builds brand recall alongside a sale. Requires Brand Registry.
Sponsored Display
Retargeting and audience-based ads shown on and off Amazon — product pages, competitor listings, even other websites. Works across the funnel, strongest for retargeting and defence.
Sponsored Products: Your Foundation
Sponsored Products should be the backbone of almost every Amazon PPC account, and for most sellers it should also receive the largest share of budget. It captures the highest-intent traffic on the platform: someone has typed a search term into Amazon, they're already in buying mode, and your ad places your listing directly in front of them at the exact moment they're deciding what to click.
It's also the most measurable ad type. Because it's keyword and ASIN-targeted, you can see precisely which search terms and which competitor products are driving sales, and adjust bids accordingly. This makes it the right starting point for any new account — and the ad type StoreStride builds out first when we take on a client, before layering in Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display.
When Sponsored Products should dominate your budget
- You're a new seller or launching a new ASIN and need to establish sales velocity and organic rank quickly
- Your catalogue is small (1–10 SKUs) and you need concentrated, high-intent coverage rather than broad brand reach
- You're optimising for immediate ACOS and return on ad spend rather than long-term brand awareness
- You haven't yet enrolled in Brand Registry, which rules out Sponsored Brands entirely
Sponsored Brands: Winning the Top of Page
Sponsored Brands ads sit above the organic and Sponsored Products results, and they're the only ad format that lets you show your logo and a custom headline before a shopper even scrolls. For brand-registered private label sellers, this real estate matters more than most people realise: it's often the first visual signal a shopper gets that a listing belongs to an established, trustworthy brand rather than an anonymous seller.
Sponsored Brands campaigns typically carry a higher ACOS than Sponsored Products, and that's expected — you're not just buying a click, you're buying visibility for your brand as a whole and driving traffic to multiple products or your Brand Store at once. Judge these campaigns on new-to-brand metrics and halo effect on your other listings, not on ACOS alone.
When to lean into Sponsored Brands
- You're Brand Registered and have at least 3–4 related products to feature together, or a Brand Store to drive traffic to
- You're competing on head-term keywords where the search results page is dominated by larger, established brands
- You want to defend top-of-search real estate on your own branded search terms so competitors can't intercept your customers
- You have decent creative assets (video especially performs well here) and want to build recognition alongside conversions
Sponsored Display: The Ad Type Most Sellers Underuse
Sponsored Display is the most misunderstood of the three, and the one we most often find switched off or badly configured when we audit a new account. It's not a search ad — it's an audience ad. It follows shoppers based on behaviour (viewed your product, viewed a similar product, viewed a competitor's product) and shows your ad on other product pages, in the "customers also viewed" carousel, and even off Amazon on other websites and apps through Amazon's DSP network.
Its single most valuable use case is views remarketing: retargeting shoppers who looked at your listing but didn't buy. These are warm leads — they already know your product exists — and Sponsored Display is usually the cheapest way to bring them back and close the sale. Its second most valuable use is defensive targeting: placing your ad directly on competitor product pages so you're the alternative a shopper sees while comparing options.
When Sponsored Display earns its budget
- You have consistent traffic volume and want to recapture visitors who viewed but didn't convert
- You're being outspent on Sponsored Products by a category leader and want a cheaper way to appear alongside their listing
- You're running a promotion or price drop and want to re-engage past viewers specifically
- You want off-Amazon reach without managing a full DSP campaign
Common mistake: Running Sponsored Display with product targeting only, and never setting up a views-remarketing audience campaign. Product targeting on Display works, but audience-based remarketing is where most of the cost-efficient wins are — and it's frequently left unused.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Factor | Sponsored Products | Sponsored Brands | Sponsored Display |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funnel stage | Bottom (purchase intent) | Top/mid (awareness & consideration) | Mid/bottom (retargeting & defence) |
| Placement | Search results, product pages | Top of search, product pages | Product pages, off-Amazon, apps |
| Targeting | Keywords, ASINs | Keywords, ASINs | Audiences, views, categories, ASINs |
| Brand Registry required | No | Yes | No (audiences need Brand Registry) |
| Typical ACOS vs Sponsored Products | Baseline | Higher | Lower on remarketing, variable on prospecting |
| Best for | Direct sales, launches, rank building | Brand defence, multi-product pushes | Recapturing lost traffic, competitor conquesting |
How to Split Budget Between Them
There's no universal ratio — it depends on account maturity, catalogue size, and category competitiveness — but the framework we use with clients starts from account stage rather than an arbitrary percentage.
New account or new launch (Month 1–3)
Put 80–90% of budget into Sponsored Products to build sales history and keyword data. Introduce a small Sponsored Display views-remarketing campaign as soon as you have meaningful traffic. Hold off on Sponsored Brands until you have Brand Registry and a stable catalogue to feature.
Growing account with Brand Registry (Month 3–9)
Shift toward roughly 60–70% Sponsored Products, 15–20% Sponsored Brands (headline search ads defending branded terms and pushing category keywords), and 15–20% Sponsored Display (remarketing plus early competitor conquesting).
Established account (9+ months, multiple SKUs)
A mature account often runs closer to 50–60% Sponsored Products, 20–25% Sponsored Brands (including video and Brand Store traffic), and 20–25% Sponsored Display. At this stage the split should be led by what the data shows, not a fixed rule — some categories justify pushing Sponsored Brands higher, others barely need it.
Review the split quarterly, not the budget alone. As new-to-brand rate, remarketing return, and category competition shift, the right allocation shifts with them. An account we set up with an 80/10/10 split in month one is rarely still at that ratio a year later.
Mistakes We See Most Often
- Judging Sponsored Brands purely on ACOS. It will almost always look worse than Sponsored Products on that single metric — that's not a sign to switch it off, it's a sign to look at new-to-brand sales and halo effect instead.
- Never enabling Sponsored Display remarketing. Sellers either skip Sponsored Display entirely or only use product targeting, missing the cheapest conversions in the account.
- Running all three types with identical bidding rules. Each ad type behaves differently in the auction; a bidding strategy copied from Sponsored Products rarely performs well when applied unchanged to Sponsored Display.
- Treating the split as fixed forever. The right allocation at launch is rarely the right allocation a year later — not revisiting it leaves money on the table in one direction or the other.
Not sure your current split is right?
StoreStride manages Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display for private label sellers on Amazon UK and globally. We'll look at your account and tell you exactly where budget should move.
Get Free Amazon PPC Audit →Common Questions
Do I need Brand Registry to run all three ad types?
No. Sponsored Products is available to any seller or vendor. Sponsored Brands requires Brand Registry. Sponsored Display is technically available without Brand Registry, but several of its most valuable targeting options — including some audience and remarketing features — are gated behind it, so most of its value depends on being enrolled.
Should a brand-new seller run Sponsored Brands from day one?
Generally no. Without sales history or Brand Registry approval yet, budget is better spent proving out Sponsored Products first. Sponsored Brands works best once you have a catalogue worth showcasing and some organic traction to build on.
Which ad type has the best ROI?
There's no single answer — it depends what you're optimising for. Sponsored Products typically delivers the best direct ROAS. Sponsored Display remarketing often delivers the best ROAS per pound spent on warm audiences specifically. Sponsored Brands rarely wins on ROAS alone but drives value that doesn't show up in that metric, like new-to-brand customers and category-level visibility.
Can Sponsored Display really show my ads off Amazon?
Yes. Sponsored Display can serve impressions on other websites and apps through Amazon's advertising network, in addition to on-Amazon placements like product pages and category results. Coverage and volume vary by category and audience size.