Amazon enhances Performance+ and Brand+ with AI improvements and insights

Amazon announced improvements to its Performance+ and Brand+ advertising solutions on November 10, 2025, at the company's annual unBoxed conference. The enhancements include refined AI models, consideration tactics designed to reach customers during purchase decisions, and insight cards revealing shopper engagement patterns.

Performance+ and Brand+ launched in 2024 as Amazon's answer to advertiser demands for transparent, AI-powered campaign management through Amazon DSP. The updates announced at unBoxed 2025 represent significant functional additions rather than incremental refinements.

The enhanced AI models now provide more precise audience targeting by leveraging Amazon's AdRelevance capability. AdRelevance predicts which customers are likely to convert over time while achieving awareness goals through data analysis of shopping, browsing, and streaming signals across Amazon's ecosystem.

Creative optimization capabilities have been integrated directly into campaign workflows. Advertisers no longer need separate tools or processes to test ad elements. The dynamic creative optimization feature enables testing multiple creative variations within Performance+ and Brand+ campaigns through the standard interface.

According to Amazon's internal data from August 2025, advertisers using dynamic creative optimization saw an 8.4% lift in paid units, a 7.9% lift in conversions, a 7.2% lift in return on ad spend, and a 6.5% lift in click-through rate compared to advertisers without DCO enabled.

The consideration tactics represent new functionality targeting customers actively evaluating purchases. These tactics operate between awareness-building activities and conversion-focused advertising, addressing the decision phase when shoppers compare products and review specifications. Amazon has systematically expanded its DSP targeting capabilitiesthroughout 2024 and 2025 to provide more sophisticated optimization tools.

Advertisers can now reach customers who previously engaged with Sponsored Products campaigns through Performance+ and Brand+ tactics. This cross-campaign remarketing capability creates connections between sponsored advertising and programmatic display, enabling full-funnel strategies through Amazon's advertising platforms.

The workflow requires as few as four clicks while maintaining flexible optimization controls. Advertisers select campaign goals (conversion, awareness, or consideration), key performance indicators like cost-per-acquisition or return on ad spend, and Performance+ tactics including prospecting, remarketing, or retention.

New insight cards appear on order line-item pages for Performance+ tactics. The cards display three key shopper characteristics, impression share showing the percentage of campaign impressions delivered to shoppers with each trait, and median time-to-convert metrics measuring how long reached shoppers take to complete purchases or off-Amazon conversions.

Expanded insight cards provide detailed metrics for each shopper trait and time-to-convert distribution. Advertisers can select specific Performance+ tactics from dropdown menus to access granular per-tactic insights rather than aggregated campaign data.

Amazon positions these enhancements within its "glass box" AI philosophy, which emphasizes transparency over black box automation. The approach provides visibility into performance drivers and optimization decisions rather than simply reporting final outcomes.

Brand+ campaigns have driven 71% more detail page views, 42% higher new-to-brand engagement, 64% more purchases, and 63% higher add-to-cart rates compared to non-Brand+ tactics, according to Amazon's performance data. Performance+ campaigns may drive up to 34% lift in return on ad spend for sellers and 68% improvement in cost per acquisition for off-Amazon advertisers.

H&R Block implemented both Brand+ and Performance+ during its 2025 tax season to reach relevant customers across fragmented touchpoints. The company needed privacy-friendly methods to bring new customers into the funnel while motivating those close to conversion to complete purchases. The combined strategy delivered a 144% lift in full-funnel conversion rate and a 35% improvement in cost per acquisition, according to advertiser-provided data.

Performance+ and Brand+ are currently available worldwide to all advertisers who sell on Amazon as well as those that do not. Customers access these features through Amazon DSP when setting up new campaign orders.

North America availability includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico. South America coverage spans Brazil. European markets include the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, and Luxembourg. Middle East regions comprise Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Asia Pacific access covers Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, and Singapore.

The timing positions the enhanced features for holiday shopping season implementation, when increased traffic and conversion activity provide substantial data for machine learning optimization. Amazon consolidated sponsored ads and DSP into Campaign Manager the same day as the Performance+ and Brand+ announcements, streamlining workflows through AI-powered features.

Performance+ represents Amazon's response to competitive automated campaign types across the advertising industry. Google introduced text guidelines for Performance Max campaigns to address brand safety concerns in automated systems. Amazon's initial Performance+ launch occurred in 2024, with 80% of advertisers achieving their target cost-per-acquisition during the beta phase.

The enhanced insight cards address persistent advertiser demands for performance transparency in AI-powered campaigns. Shopper trait data and time-to-convert metrics provide specific information about campaign effectiveness rather than aggregated performance summaries. This granularity enables optimization decisions based on audience segments and conversion patterns.

Dynamic creative optimization eliminates previous requirements for separate creative testing processes. Advertisers can associate creative assets while building Performance+ tactics, streamlining campaign setup while enabling systematic testing. The 8.4% lift in paid units and 7.9% lift in conversions from DCO usage suggest meaningful performance improvements from integrated creative testing.

The consideration tactics fill a strategic gap between awareness campaigns and conversion-focused advertising. Customers actively evaluating purchases represent a distinct audience segment requiring different messaging than either brand discovery or final purchase incentives. Targeting this consideration phase addresses the complete purchase journey rather than focusing exclusively on top-of-funnel or bottom-of-funnel activities.

Cross-campaign remarketing connects Sponsored Products engagement with Performance+ and Brand+ advertising. Advertisers can now build strategies that begin with sponsored search advertising and extend to programmatic display remarketing through unified campaign workflows. This integration reflects Amazon's broader platform consolidation strategy.

Timeline

• 2024: Amazon launches Performance+ and Brand+ with predictive AI capability AdRelevance for precision targeting and conversion optimization
• August 2025: Amazon internal testing shows dynamic creative optimization drives 8.4% lift in paid units among U.S. advertisers using the feature
• September 2024: Amazon DSP introduces goal-based bidding to enhance brand campaign efficiency with reach and frequency optimization
• October 2024: Amazon unveils next-generation DSP capabilities at unBoxed 2024 including frequency management and ads data manager
• November 10, 2025: Amazon consolidates sponsored ads and DSP in single Campaign Manager platform with AI-powered features
• November 10, 2025: Amazon announces Performance+ and Brand+ enhancements at unBoxed 2025 including consideration tactics and insight cards
• November 11, 2025: Amazon introduces Ads Agent for automated campaign management across DSP and Marketing Cloud platforms

Summary

Who: Amazon Ads announced the enhancements affecting all advertisers worldwide using Performance+ and Brand+ through Amazon DSP, including both sellers on Amazon and off-Amazon advertisers seeking programmatic advertising capabilities.

What: Amazon enhanced Performance+ and Brand+ with improved AI models for precise audience targeting, new consideration tactics to reach customers during purchase decisions, dynamic creative optimization integrated into campaign workflows, cross-campaign remarketing connecting Sponsored Products with DSP tactics, and insight cards displaying shopper traits, impression share, and time-to-convert metrics.

When: Amazon announced the enhancements on November 10, 2025, at the company's annual unBoxed conference, with features available immediately to advertisers in 36 countries across six continents.

Where: The enhanced features are available through Amazon DSP globally, covering North America (United States, Canada, Mexico), South America (Brazil), Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg), Middle East (Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait), and Asia Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, Singapore).

Why: The enhancements address advertiser demands for transparent AI-powered campaign management by providing visibility into performance drivers through detailed metrics, enabling full-funnel strategies that move customers from awareness to conversion, and integrating creative optimization directly into workflows to eliminate separate testing processes while maintaining advertiser control over campaign execution.