Sponsored Brands is a self-service ad format on Amazon that promotes a brand rather than a single product. The ad carries a logo, a custom headline and either several products, a lifestyle image or a video, and it appears above, alongside or within Amazon search results, on product pages and on the mobile home page. A click leads to the brand's Amazon store, a product detail page or a landing page of selected products. The format exists because a shopper typing a category word such as "running shoes" has not yet picked a brand, and a shopper typing a brand name can still be intercepted by a rival. Sponsored Brands sells the space where that choice is made. Amazon called it Headline Search Ads until September 2018.

How it works

Eligibility is narrower than for Sponsored Products. Vendors, book vendors, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors, agencies and professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry may advertise, according to Amazon. Adult, used, refurbished and closed-category products are excluded. Brand Registry requires a registered or pending trademark, which in practice makes a trademark the entry ticket for third-party sellers in Seller Central.

A campaign starts with a goal, which Amazon added in October 2023. Drive page visits is billed per click (CPC) and serves on search pages, detail pages and the home page. Grow brand impression share is billed per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) and serves only in the top-of-search slot, with top-of-search impression share as its success metric, according to Amazon's launch note. A third goal, reserve share of voice, replaces the auction with a fixed upfront price.

The advertiser then picks a format. A collection shows several products, either chosen by Amazon's models from the catalogue or picked manually, up to 10 Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) per ad since May 2026. Brand Store spotlight features up to three sub-pages of the brand's store, which needs at least three sub-pages to qualify. Sponsored Brands video auto-plays a clip of 6 to 45 seconds within search results; it runs in its own placement and auction, so it does not compete with the same brand's other campaigns, according to Amazon's guide. Amazon reviews each ad within 72 hours.

Targeting comes in two kinds, and a campaign can use only one. Keyword targeting uses broad, phrase and exact match, with a "+" before a word in a broad match keyword forcing that word into the query; Amazon recommends at least 25 keywords. Product targeting aims at specific ASINs or at categories refined by brand, price range or review rating. Negative keywords and negative products exclude placements. Theme targeting, introduced alongside goals, bundles keywords Amazon associates with the brand or the landing page. Two bid-adjustment audiences, "Purchased brand's product" and "Clicked or Added to cart", let advertisers raise bids for shoppers who already know the brand.

Each impression is sold in an auction. Amazon describes ranking as a combination of bid and relevance, and says an advertiser never pays more than its bid. There is no minimum spend for CPC or vCPM campaigns, though Amazon suggests a daily budget of at least $10. Amazon's own example, in a July 2024 update, equates a $20 vCPM bid with a $1 CPC bid, depending on how viewable and clickable the ad is.

Reporting differs from Sponsored Products in one respect that matters. New-to-brand metrics count orders and sales from shoppers who had not bought the brand on Amazon in the previous 12 months. Amazon tells advertisers that return on ad spend (ROAS) should not be the primary measure for Sponsored Brands, a position that suits the seller of the ad. A Brand Store page views metric arrived in November 2025, counting store pages viewed after exposure to an ad.

Origin and evolution

Headline Search Ads were sold through Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) and were long associated with vendors, the companies selling wholesale to Amazon. By August 2017, Amazon had opened them to third-party sellers enrolled in Brand Registry, according to eSellerHub. Amazon has not published a launch date for the original format.

On September 6, 2018, Amazon folded Amazon Media Group, AMS and the Amazon Advertising Platform into a single brand, Amazon Advertising, and renamed Headline Search Ads as Sponsored Brands to match Sponsored Products, according to The Drum. "This is another step towards our goal of providing advertising solutions that are simple and intuitive," said Paul Kotas, then senior vice president of Amazon advertising. The same quarter, according to the complaint later filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Amazon began applying undisclosed soft reserve prices in Sponsored Brands auctions.

Video followed. A 2018 unit called Video in Search preceded Sponsored Brands video, which appeared in 2019 and was still in beta in October 2020, according to Intentwise. In August 2023, video campaigns could link to a Brand Store and show up to three products, with taps on a product opening its detail page and taps elsewhere opening the store. Goal-based campaigns and vCPM billing arrived on October 25, 2023. Vertical video followed in February 2024. On August 8, 2024, Amazon added cost control, which adjusts bids per auction to hold a target average CPC.

The largest structural change came in 2025. Reserve share of voice was tested with more than 15 US advertisers from May to August, documented in October and launched at unBoxed on November 11, according to Amazon. In the pilot, top-of-search impression share on the same branded queries rose from 62.7% to 99.3%, and click-attributed sales rose 143%.

Why it matters for marketers

Sponsored Brands is where brand defence happens on Amazon. Among 6,000 advertisers studied in June 2023, about 60% of shoppers who searched for a brand bought from a competitor within 30 days, Amazon said when it launched goals. Advertisers averaged about 62% top-of-search impression share on their own branded queries in 2025, according to Amazon. The remaining share is sold to rivals bidding on those names.

Reserve share of voice turns that space into a guaranteed-ish booking. Brand Registry decides which keywords are "resolvable" as the advertiser's brand, a deal needs at least five targets, and campaigns run on a lifetime budget equal to the price with a FIXED_PRICE cost type. Amazon's documentation example priced six branded keyword variations for three months at $4,914. Amazon says the ad appears in position "most of the time." Alexander Swade, an Amazon advertising specialist, judged it "nothing for the small brands."

The format also shapes how share of voice is measured on retail sites. Within a retail media network, it is the closest thing to a brand-level search ad, and it is the format through which Amazon has routed its AI shopping prompts. Sponsored Brands prompts became billable on March 25, 2026 in the United States, under existing CPC bids and with automatic enrolment.

Limitations and disputes

Pricing transparency is the central dispute. In the complaint filed by the FTC and 22 states on August 31, 2026, regulators allege that Amazon set the price of about 70% of Sponsored Brands clicks in 2024 and charged winners their own bid about half the time, while a developer guide described paying "one cent more" than the next bidder. Amazon disputes the claims, says reserve prices are common in the industry and that no advertiser pays above its bid. No liability has been found. The case followed FTC inquiries opened on September 12, 2025.

Sources also disagree on smaller points. Amazon's product page says reserve share of voice requires a minimum spend commitment, while the October 2025 API documentation reviewed by PPC Land stated none. Amazon recommends a $10 daily budget; SupplyKick, an agency, cites a $1 minimum. Reserve prices are set from historical search volume, so a brand whose searches fall during the booking may overpay.

Measurement is mostly Amazon's. The performance claims for reserve share of voice, Brand Gallery and Brand Store landing pages come from internal data without external audit. Branded-keyword campaigns also attract a familiar criticism from search advertising: much of the credited traffic may have arrived anyway, and paying to defend one's own name is partly a cost created by selling that name to competitors.

Not the same as

Sponsored Products. Promotes individual listings in search results and on product pages, open to sellers without Brand Registry. It carries no logo or headline.

Sponsored Display. Targets audiences and product views, on and off Amazon, rather than search queries.

Brand Store. A free multi-page storefront on Amazon. It is a common Sponsored Brands destination, not an ad.

DVA (formerly Amazon DSP). Amazon's programmatic buying product for display, video and audio, which uses audience targeting and reaches beyond Amazon's search results. Amazon retired the Amazon DSP name on September 29, 2026.

Recent developments

On May 27, 2026, Amazon launched AI-curated Sponsored Brands collections in 18 markets. A day later it added Brand Gallery, a reserve-share-of-voice format that sends brand searchers into a carousel of three to five store categories. A four-advertiser beta reported improvements without figures.

At unBoxed in San Francisco on September 29, 2026, Amazon Ads Agent replaced the former Ads Console and Amazon DSP interfaces, and Sponsored Brands campaigns are now launched through it. Amazon also announced Branded Conversations, which turns a tap on a Sponsored Brands collections prompt into a multi-turn exchange inside Alexa for Shopping, drawing on the brand's catalogue and supplied content, according to Amazon. It starts in the United States in January 2027, with CPC charged only for the opening prompt and follow-up turns free.

Timeline

  • 2017: Brand Registry launches; by August, Headline Search Ads open to third-party sellers enrolled in it
  • September 6, 2018: Amazon unifies its ad businesses as Amazon Advertising and renames Headline Search Ads as Sponsored Brands
  • Late 2018: Soft reserve pricing begins in Sponsored Brands auctions, according to the FTC complaint
  • 2019: Sponsored Brands video introduced, succeeding the 2018 Video in Search unit
  • August 14, 2023: Video campaigns can link to Brand Stores with up to three products
  • October 25, 2023: Goal-based campaigns introduce Drive page visits (CPC) and Grow brand impression share (vCPM)
  • February 2024: Vertical video available in Sponsored Brands
  • July 30, 2024: Custom product landing pages added to Grow brand impression share
  • August 8, 2024: Cost control for Sponsored Brands launches
  • May-August 2025: Reserve share of voice beta with more than 15 US advertisers
  • September 12, 2025: FTC opens inquiries into Amazon and Google search ad pricing disclosures
  • November 3, 2025: Brand Store page views metric introduced
  • November 11, 2025: Reserve share of voice launched at unBoxed 2025; prompts enter beta
  • March 25, 2026: Sponsored Brands prompts become generally available and billable in the US
  • May 27, 2026: AI-powered Sponsored Brands collections launch in 18 markets
  • May 28, 2026: Brand Gallery launches for reserve share of voice campaigns
  • August 31, 2026: FTC and 22 states sue Amazon over undisclosed reserve pricing across sponsored ads
  • September 29, 2026: Amazon Ads Agent replaces the Ads Console; Amazon DSP renamed DVA; Branded Conversations announced
  • January 2027: Branded Conversations scheduled to start in the US

Summary

Who. Amazon Ads sells Sponsored Brands to vendors, KDP authors, agencies and professional sellers enrolled in Brand Registry. Rival brands bid against each other for category and branded searches, and the FTC and 22 states contest how Amazon has priced the auctions.

What. A brand-level ad combining a logo, headline and products, a store spotlight or video, sold by CPC, by vCPM or, for branded top-of-search, at a fixed reserved price, and measured with new-to-brand metrics.

When. Sold as Headline Search Ads before 2017, renamed on September 6, 2018, reorganised around goals on October 25, 2023, extended with reserve share of voice on November 11, 2025, and due to feed Branded Conversations from January 2027.

Where. Above and within Amazon search results, on product detail pages and on the mobile home page, across 21 Amazon marketplaces listed by Amazon, with some features limited to the United States.

Why. Brands use it to win shoppers before a brand is chosen and to stop competitors capturing searches for their own names. Amazon's unaudited performance data, undisclosed reserve pricing and the cost of defending branded terms remain the points of contention.