Amazon Ads has put decisions on its partner status program on hold through the fourth quarter of 2026, leaving the Verified and Advanced labels in its Partner Network unchanged for the rest of the year. The freeze reaches further than a badge. Verified status is the minimum requirement for Scorecard, a self-service reporting tool that sets an agency's or technology partner's Amazon Ads results against the median growth of anonymized peers, according to an Amazon Ads Support Center page last updated on September 29, 2026.

The partner status page itself carries no date. It states only that the program is on hold through Q4 2026 and that Amazon will publish a new structure and new criteria before it returns. Taken together, the two pages describe a measurement system that is live and a recognition system that is not.

In Short

Amazon has stopped making partner status decisions until the end of 2026, and its Scorecard tool, which compares a partner's Amazon Ads growth with that of similar partners, opens only to independent agencies and tech partners that already hold at least Verified status. That matters to the agencies and ad tech firms that use Amazon's badges, directory placement and Partner Awards eligibility to win clients, because on the page's wording the list of firms able to open Scorecard stays as it is until the program returns. Scorecard shows each KPI's current value, its year-over-year change and the peer median, refreshed monthly by the 7th, while the rules for the next version of partner status have not been published.

What Scorecard shows

According to Amazon, Scorecard gives a partner a consolidated view of its Amazon Ads performance across all the advertisers it manages. It sits inside Partner Network and combines three things: a partner's own KPIs, their year-over-year trends, and anonymized benchmarks drawn from similar partners. Amazon is explicit about one absence. "There is no composite score," the page states. Partners get a range of metrics rather than a single grade.

Access is defined in a single line at the top of the page: "Scorecard is available to independent agencies and tech partners with at least Verified status in Partner Network." Agencies outside that description, and partners below Verified, are not covered by the tool.

Two sets of KPIs

The metrics fall into two groups. Growth KPIs reflect a partner's overall business on Amazon; the examples given are active advertisers and retained advertisers ad spend. Capabilities KPIs cover the services, tools and expertise a partner provides, with certified employees, AMC clean rooms and Brand+ adoption named as examples. AMC is Amazon Marketing Cloud, the company's clean room for advertising and shopping signals, while Brand+ is one of two AI-driven campaign types in Amazon's demand-side platform. Both Brand+ and Performance+ launched in 2024 and were enhanced at unBoxed on November 10, 2025.

Each KPI displays three numbers: the partner's current value, its change year over year, and how that compares with the benchmark median for similar partners.

Filters, periods and the monthly refresh

Partners can cut the view three ways. The ad product filter lists all products, Sponsored Ads, and Display, Video, Audio (DVA), then breaks these down into Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Display, Video/Streaming TV, Audio, OLV and Twitch. Display appears twice in that list, once in each grouping, and neither Sponsored Display nor Sponsored TV is named. The country filter covers the countries where Amazon Ads is available. The advertiser account type filter has three values: Enterprise, Growth and Self-service.

For advertiser-level detail, Scorecard shows the top and bottom ten advertisers contributing to any KPI. That gives an agency a direct line from a weak aggregate number to the client accounts behind it.

Time periods are fixed: year to date, the last 12 months and recent quarters. Data is updated monthly, by the 7th of the following month, so the figures always stop at the end of the previous month and can take up to a week after it closes to arrive.

Element What the Scorecard page says
Eligibility Independent agencies and tech partners with at least Verified status in Partner Network
Composite score None
KPI groups Growth (examples: active advertisers, retained advertisers ad spend); Capabilities (examples: certified employees, AMC clean rooms, Brand+ adoption)
Values per KPI Current value, year-over-year change, comparison with the benchmark median for similar partners
Benchmark Median rate of change among a cohort of similar partners
Ad product filter All products, Sponsored Ads, Display, Video, Audio (DVA), Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Display, Video/Streaming TV, Audio, OLV, Twitch
Other filters Country (where Amazon Ads is available); advertiser account type (Enterprise, Growth, Self-service)
Advertiser detail Top and bottom ten advertisers contributing to any KPI
Time periods Year to date, last 12 months, recent quarters
Data refresh Monthly, by the 7th of the following month

A benchmark built on trajectory, not size

The design choice that defines Scorecard is what it compares. "A benchmark is the median rate of change among a cohort of similar partners," the page explains. "This isn't a raw performance comparison." The tool measures whether a partner's trajectory is ahead of, in line with, or behind peers at a similar scale, not whether that partner is bigger or smaller than them.

Amazon's worked example uses Amazon Marketing Cloud. If a partner's AMC adoption grew 10% year over year while the benchmark cohort grew 25%, Scorecard highlights the 15 percentage point difference between the two growth rates. The page then adds a line that reads as reassurance aimed at agencies wary of being ranked: "That's not a penalty. It's an early signal that shows where the market is going."

Measure in Amazon's example Year-over-year growth
Partner's AMC adoption 10%
Benchmark cohort (median) 25%
Difference highlighted by Scorecard 15 percentage points

Benchmark cohorts are anonymized. According to Amazon, partners never see which specific firms are in their group, and no other partner can see their individual data.

Rate-of-change benchmarks carry a known quirk, which is why the scale of the cohort matters. In a PPC Land illustration, not an Amazon figure, a partner that moves from two AMC clean rooms to three has grown 50%, while one that moves from 40 to 46 has grown 15%, even though the second added six times as many.

PPC Land calculation (hypothetical partners) Prior year Current year Added Year-over-year growth
Partner A, AMC clean rooms 2 3 1 50%
Partner B, AMC clean rooms 40 46 6 15%

Amazon's answer is to compare partners "at a similar scale", a phrase the page does not define.

That gap is familiar. When Amazon took its advertiser benchmarks to 18 markets in May 2026, PPC Land noted that the company had not published precise details about how peer groups are constructed. The original benchmarks launch in November 2025 described "peer brand matching" without setting out the method. Scorecard applies the same peer logic one level up, to the agencies and tools that run campaigns for those brands.

Where the numbers come from

Scorecard KPIs are ingested from internal sources across teams in Amazon Ads, "as close to the source as possible to ensure authoritative data," according to the page. Where a partner believes its data is wrong, Amazon points to one variable: advertiser mapping, which it says has a direct effect on the numbers.

Mapping is also the foundation of Verified status, which depends on linking users and advertisers to a Partner Network account. Manager accounts date back to October 2020, when Amazon let advertisers and agencies link multiple accounts and manage users, billing and account-level metrics from one dashboard. An agency that has linked only part of its client roster will, by Amazon's own description, see only part of its business in Scorecard.

Amazon closes the page with four tips: look at KPIs that sit below the benchmark, watch year-over-year trends, focus on KPIs that align with the partner's Partner Agreement, and review the numbers after each monthly refresh. On trends, the page is blunt. "A KPI that's flat or declining year-over-year deserves attention even if the absolute number looks fine."

Access path and Verified setup, as documented

The Scorecard page sets out four steps to reach the tool:

  1. In the navigation side menu, the user clicks Partner Network.
  2. The user clicks Overview.
  3. The homepage displays the Scorecard preview.
  4. Clicking View all performance opens the full experience.

The partner status page defines the entry tier in one sentence: "A verified partner is a company that has successfully registered for the Amazon Ads Partner Network and completed their Partner Network account setup by linking users and advertisers (either through manager account or linking a Login with Amazon application), and created a partner directory listing." Broken into its parts, that definition describes three steps:

  1. Registration for the Amazon Ads Partner Network.
  2. Partner Network account setup, by linking users and advertisers through a manager account or by linking a Login with Amazon application.
  3. Creation of a partner directory listing.

According to the same page, an admin can check on the Partner Network homepage which of those actions remain outstanding.

Partner status, paused

The partner status page opens with a single line - "The Partner status program is on hold through Q4 2026" - and a highlighted notice beneath it. "The current program and partner statuses will remain unchanged through 2026," Amazon writes. "We'll share full details on the new structure and criteria ahead of relaunch."

The rest of the page describes the two tiers as they stand, and its wording sets out what each label permits. Verified partners receive a badge that can be downloaded from the assets section of their Partner Network account, and the page states: "Verified partners can use the badge in their own marketing materials and can refer to themselves as a verified partner." Their listing "highlights their status" and gets "higher prominence in the partner directory than partners without status." For Advanced partners the permission is worded the same way: "Advanced partners can use the badge in their own marketing materials and can refer to themselves as an advanced partner." Their listing gets "higher prominence in partner directory than other partners."

Item Verified partner Advanced partner
How the tier is reached Register for Partner Network, link users and advertisers (manager account or Login with Amazon application), create a directory listing Not set out on the page
Badge Verified partner badge, from the assets section of the Partner Network account Advanced partner badge, from the assets section of the Partner Network account
Use in marketing Badge in own marketing materials; may refer to itself as a verified partner Badge in own marketing materials; may refer to itself as an advanced partner
Partner directory Listing highlights status; higher prominence than partners without status Listing highlights status; higher prominence than other partners
Amazon Ads Partner Awards May apply May apply
Scorecard Available (minimum tier) Available
Status through 2026 Unchanged Unchanged

One benefit is shared. "Only verified and advanced partners can apply for the Amazon Ads Partner Awards," the page states. Amazon's March 16, 2026 call for entries opened submissions from March 16 to April 10 and required applicants to hold Advanced or Verified status and keep it through the program cycle, for campaigns that ran between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, according to the company's announcement.

The tiers have a longer history than the badges. PPC Land reported in July 2021 that Amazon had launched a Partner Network program for agencies and tool providers, in which partners could earn advanced partner status that came with access to select beta programs and training, alongside a planned global partner directory. Amazon formalized the current two-tier structure on April 28, 2022, describing verified and advanced status as "based on data provided through the Partner Network" and as recognition for partners that "demonstrate expertise and engagement with Amazon Ads, and deliver growth for advertisers," according to its announcement at the time.

Set against those earlier versions, two things have changed. The benefits named in 2022 - a tier badge, the right to reference status in marketing and an updated directory listing - survive on the current page, but the beta-program and training access that PPC Land's 2021 report tied to advanced status is not listed. And the data-driven assessment described in 2022 is now suspended, with statuses held where they were until a new structure is published.

What happens to a firm that registers during the pause? The page does not say. Read literally, statuses that "remain unchanged" mean that a partner that lacks Verified status now stays without it, and therefore without Scorecard, until the new structure arrives. Amazon has not said whether Scorecard's KPIs will feed the new criteria. The overlap in vocabulary is plain, though: the 2022 language of expertise, engagement and advertiser growth maps closely onto Scorecard's Capabilities and Growth groups.

Amazon's cloud division uses the same product name for a different purpose. AWS documentation describes its Partner Scorecard as a tool to track progression through AWS Partner paths and tier requirements. The Amazon Ads version is presented as reporting, with no composite score and no stated link to tiers.

Why the freeze and the tool matter

The money moving through Amazon's ad business explains why agencies pay attention to how Amazon classifies them. Advertising services revenue reached $19.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 26% year over year, after the trailing twelve-month total passed $70 billion with the first quarter. Part of that spend is managed by agencies and software vendors acting for brands, and directory prominence is a visible way for Amazon to point advertisers toward particular partners.

Amazon has been tightening its definitions of who those partners are. In July 2025 it formalized requirements and benefits for ad tech activation partners, the third-party firms that run campaigns in its demand-side platform; a directory search at the time returned 234 results for Amazon DSP services. Scorecard adds a monthly, peer-relative view of each partner's book of business on top of those classifications.

The Capabilities examples deserve a second look. AMC clean rooms and Brand+ adoption measure use of Amazon's own products, and the partner status page lists Amazon Ads certifications among its related topics. A partner that scores well on that half of Scorecard is, by construction, one that has moved more of its work into Amazon's tools. Whether those metrics carry weight in the next version of partner status is the open question for agencies that have built their positioning on the badge.

What the pages leave out

Several details are missing from both pages: the full KPI lists behind the "See all" controls, the meaning of the Enterprise, Growth and Self-service account types, how benchmark cohorts are built and how large they are, the criteria for Advanced status, the contents of the Partner Agreement, whether agencies owned by holding companies get comparable reporting, and the dates on which the pause began and the program returns.

Key facts

  • Product: Scorecard, a self-service performance reporting tool in the Amazon Ads Partner Network
  • Eligibility: independent agencies and tech partners with at least Verified status in Partner Network
  • KPI groups: Growth and Capabilities; no composite score
  • Benchmark: median rate of change among an anonymized cohort of similar partners
  • Time periods: year to date, last 12 months, recent quarters
  • Data refresh: monthly, by the 7th of the following month
  • Status tiers: Verified partner and Advanced partner
  • Status program: on hold through Q4 2026; current program and partner statuses unchanged through 2026; new structure and criteria to be shared ahead of relaunch; relaunch date not given
  • Source documents: "Understand Scorecard", Amazon Ads Support Center, updated September 29, 2026; "Verified and advanced partner status", Amazon Ads Support Center, undated
  • Source URL: advertising.amazon.com/help/GUSNK8NFV6M8TC8G (partner status page, linked from the Scorecard page)
  • Earlier Amazon references: "Introducing partner status" (April 28, 2022); 2026 Amazon Ads Partner Awards call for entries (March 16, 2026, submissions to April 10)

Timeline

Summary

Who: Amazon Ads, and the independent agencies and technology partners in its Partner Network that hold, or seek, Verified or Advanced status.

What: Amazon has paused partner status decisions through Q4 2026, keeping all current statuses unchanged and promising a new structure and criteria before relaunch. Verified status is also the entry requirement for Scorecard, a reporting tool that shows Growth and Capabilities KPIs, their year-over-year change and the median rate of change among anonymized peers, with no composite score and a monthly refresh by the 7th.

When: The Scorecard Support Center page was last updated on September 29, 2026. The partner status page is undated and says the pause runs through Q4 2026.

Where: In the Partner Network section of Amazon Ads, across the countries where Amazon Ads is available, with filters by ad product, country and advertiser account type.

Why: Partner status controls badges, directory prominence and eligibility for the Amazon Ads Partner Awards, while Scorecard gives Amazon and its partners a shared, peer-relative view of each partner's business. With the old criteria frozen and new ones not yet published, the KPIs Scorecard tracks are the clearest public indication of what Amazon measures in its partners.