Benchmark brand name is a dimension in Amazon Ads unified reporting that identifies the brand a row of benchmark data is calculated for. Amazon's benchmarks compare an advertiser's campaign metrics, such as click-through rate or cost per thousand impressions, with the spread of results achieved by similar brands in the same product category. Those comparisons only make sense if the report states whose peer group is being used. The field exists to answer that question in plain text: it carries the brand, taken from the products a campaign promotes, against which Amazon assembled a set of competitors.

It is one of seven benchmark attributes, alongside benchmark brand ID, four benchmark browse category fields (ID, path, level and marketplace) and benchmark campaign goal. Together they describe the comparison set, not the advertiser's performance.

Where the field appears

Amazon publishes the dimension in its Support Center reference for unified reporting, the single reporting system it opened in beta in November 2025 and made generally available in June 2026. That reference, updated on November 11, 2026, lists 156 attributes across 11 categories, and all seven benchmark rows carry markers for DVA+, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display. DVA+ is the AI-led campaign type that merges buying for Amazon's demand-side platform, Sponsored Display and Sponsored TV. None of the benchmark fields has a former name.

The reference describes six of the seven benchmark attributes, including the brand name, as "derived from the products promoted in the campaign." Benchmark campaign goal is the exception, derived from campaign goal and optimisation settings. When a dimension does not apply to an ad product, Amazon's rule is that "its value appears as null."

A second Support Center page, "Understanding benchmark metrics and recommended actions," updated the same day, names three of the seven fields directly. Benchmark brand name, benchmark browse category path and benchmark campaign goal show "the peer group for each comparison", according to that page. Benchmark columns are available in unified reporting and the Reporting API, while the campaign manager shows a single insight card with the median only.

How the value is populated

The brand in the field is the advertiser's own brand, not a competitor. Amazon's white paper on the system, promoted on March 27, 2026, uses the term focus brand, "defined as the advertiser brand for which benchmark metrics are computed," according to the paper. Peers are then found for that focus brand. Individual peer brands are never named in the report. Amazon describes its method as privacy-first, protecting the confidentiality of each advertiser in the pool.

The construction runs in three steps, according to the white paper:

  1. Peer identification. A system Amazon calls PeerSets combines a k-nearest neighbour (KNN) model, which finds brands that sit close to the focus brand on brand-level revenue and average sales price within a category, with a large language model (LLM) that judges whether those brands genuinely compete.
  2. Campaign qualification. Peer campaigns must meet thresholds for operational status and minimum activity, and match on ad format, campaign goal and product type. Goals are split into awareness, consideration and conversion.
  3. Aggregation. Each peer brand's results are summed across its valid campaigns, then combined into spend-weighted percentiles.

Two guardrails apply. At least five peer brands are required, or no benchmark is surfaced. No single brand may contribute more than 49% of the total weight, with the excess redistributed among the others.

Because the brand is derived from promoted products, a campaign advertising several brands raises the question of which brand a row represents. Amazon's published material does not answer it.

What a row looks like

A benchmark row pairs the advertiser's own figure with three peer percentiles. In unified reporting and the API, the columns follow a pattern such as "CTR (p25), CTR (p50), and CTR (p75)." Figures without a percentile label are the advertiser's own.

Take a hypothetical row for a coffee brand. Benchmark brand name reads the brand's name as registered with Amazon. Benchmark browse category path reads something like Grocery > Coffee > Whole Bean, with the category level giving the depth of that node and the marketplace giving the Amazon store, such as the United States. Benchmark campaign goal reads conversion. The row then shows the brand's CTR next to the peer p25, p50 and p75 values for that category, goal and period.

Eight metrics are covered: percent of purchases new to brand, purchase rate (new to brand), cost per purchase (new to brand), CTR, cost per click (CPC), completion rate for video, cost per completed view for video, and CPM. For rate metrics, the top quartile signals strong results. For cost metrics, the order flips, and the bottom quartile is the cheaper outcome. Data can be cut daily, weekly or monthly, and filtered by ad format and campaign goal.

The spend weighting matters. The white paper's worked example of five brands produces an unweighted median CTR of 10% but a spend-weighted median of 3.00%, because large spenders pull the result towards their own performance. A brand reading its p50 column is comparing itself with where the money in the category sits, not with the typical peer.

Who can see it

Access is limited to brand owners. Amazon's general availability announcement of May 18, 2026 restricts benchmarks to brand owners and representatives in Brand Registry, Amazon's programme for registering trademarks, and to endemic advertisers - those selling on Amazon - in 15 markets. Amazon operates the whole calculation, with no third-party auditor, and builds the peer pool entirely from its own advertiser data.

Origin and evolution

Amazon's earlier attempt at peer comparison was narrower. In January 2021 it launched the Sponsored Brands category benchmark report, a downloadable file showing impressions, CTR, return on ad spend (ROAS) and advertising cost of sales (ACOS) at the median, bottom quartile and top quartile of "your closest peers" within shopping categories, over a 90-day lookback. An API endpoint for that report returns a brandName field next to a categoryId that is documented as the browse node ID, according to a third-party copy of the endpoint schema. The modern benchmark brand and browse category fields follow the same logic across far more products.

The current system was announced at unBoxed in November 2025. PPC Land reported the launch on November 18, 2025, with two new report types: dspBenchmarks for the demand-side platform and crossProgramBenchmarks for sponsored ads. Amazon's own launch notice carries a November 19 date and limited availability to the United States. General availability in 18 markets followed on May 18, 2026, and PPC Land covered the expansion on June 1. The 156-attribute dimensions reference, which first set out the seven benchmark fields by name, was published on November 11, 2026.

Why it matters

The field is the only readable label saying what a benchmark is a benchmark of. Without it, a CTR p50 has no reference point. With it, an agency managing several brands can separate rows and avoid blending unrelated peer groups. The field also lets teams check that Amazon has assigned the brand they expected, which is not guaranteed when catalogues include licensed or sub-brands.

Limitations and disputes

Several gaps remain. Amazon does not publish the peer list, the minimum activity thresholds or the refresh cadence, so the brand name points to a comparison set that the advertiser cannot inspect. The Support Center defines the median as "the middle performance level where half of peer brands perform above and half perform below," yet also says calculations are spend-weighted. PPC Land noted that the two statements conflict.

Product coverage is also inconsistent. The May announcement listed Amazon DSP, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and Sponsored TV. The November page says benchmark metrics in unified reporting cover Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Streaming TV and DVA+, leaving out Sponsored Display, even though the dimensions reference marks every benchmark field for Sponsored Display. Eligibility differs too: the November page omits endemic advertisers. Finally, the November 12 migration page lists the legacy benchmark report among ten types with no unified reporting equivalent yet, which sits awkwardly beside benchmark columns already documented in unified reporting.

The recommendations attached to the benchmarks have drawn criticism. Of the 16 actions on the Support Center page, none suggests cutting a budget or pausing a campaign, and favourable results consistently lead to advice to scale or bid higher, PPC Land found.

  • Benchmark brand ID is the companion identifier for the same brand. The name is readable text; an ID is the safer key for joining data when names change or repeat.
  • Advertised product brand is the brand of a specific product shown in an ad, at product level. Benchmark brand name is the brand chosen to anchor a peer comparison.
  • Converted product brand is the brand of the item actually bought after an ad interaction, which may differ from the advertised product.
  • Benchmark browse category path defines the category in which peers were sought. Brand name says who is being compared; the category path says where.

Recent developments

The past week has given the field its first documentation. Amazon's dimensions reference and its benchmark metrics page were both updated on November 11, 2026, and PPC Land counted the seven benchmark attributes among 156 dimensions the following day. The same reporting stack faces two scheduled changes. Legacy report pages become read-only on December 17, 2026 and shut on January 31, 2027. From January 1, 2027, display impressions in Amazon's DVA platform will be counted only once on screen, and Amazon expects counts to fall by about 63% on average, which will move the CPM and CTR figures on both sides of every benchmark row.

Timeline

  • January 2019 - Amazon introduces new-to-brand metrics, later three of the eight benchmark metrics.
  • January 28, 2021 - Amazon launches the Sponsored Brands category benchmark report with median and quartile peer values.
  • November 11, 2025 - Unified reporting opens in beta.
  • November 18-19, 2025 - Self-service benchmarks launch in the United States with the dspBenchmarks and crossProgramBenchmarks report types.
  • March 27, 2026 - Amazon promotes its benchmarks white paper describing PeerSets and the focus brand.
  • May 18, 2026 - Benchmarks reporting reaches general availability in 18 markets.
  • June 8, 2026 - Unified reporting reaches general availability.
  • September 29, 2026 - Amazon DSP renamed DVA.
  • November 11, 2026 - Amazon publishes the 156-attribute dimensions reference listing benchmark brand name, and updates its benchmark metrics page.
  • December 17, 2026 - Legacy report pages scheduled to become read-only.
  • January 1, 2027 - On-screen-only impression counting begins for DVA display.
  • January 31, 2027 - Legacy report centres scheduled for decommissioning.

Summary

  • Who: Amazon Ads calculates the benchmarks and populates the field. Brand owners and representatives in Brand Registry, and endemic advertisers in eligible markets, can see it.
  • What: A unified reporting dimension that names the advertiser's own brand, the "focus brand," for which a peer group was built and against which benchmark percentiles are reported.
  • When: Benchmarks launched in November 2025 and reached general availability on May 18, 2026. The field was documented by name in Amazon's dimensions reference on November 11, 2026.
  • Where: Amazon Ads unified reporting and the Reporting API, for DVA+, Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display rows, in 18 marketplaces.
  • Why: Benchmark percentiles are meaningless without a stated reference point. The field tells a reader whose peer set produced the p25, p50 and p75 values in each row.