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Why are Amazon Sponsored Product Listings Important?

Updated: Sep 22, 2023

Selling on Amazon can seem confusing and overwhelming at times. With so many things to organize and manage, while trying to keep sales high, it’s no wonder many sellers overlook advertising with Amazon Sponsored Product Listings because it can feel like way too much to take on. And is it even worth it?


Before discussing the value of Amazon Sponsored Product Listings, here is a quick explanation of what they are and how they work.


What are Amazon Sponsored Product Listings?

Amazon Sponsored Product Listings are image ads that appear in several different places on Amazon. They look similar to regular image results when someone searches for a product, appearing at the top of the results page. In the image below, you can see that the first three products are Amazon Sponsored Product Listings because they each say ‘Sponsored’ above the item name.

Amazon Sponsored Product Listings - search results

Also on the search results page, Sponsored Products can appear at the very top as a banner as shown in the image below.

Amazon Sponsored Product Listings sample

Sponsored Product Listings can also be shown as related items on product pages for products that are similar to the one you are advertising. The image below was taken from a product page for a men’s button up shirt. The section show in the image displays the sponsored products that are related.

Sponsored Products - Related

How do Sponsored Product Listings work?

So now that you know some of the places Amazon Sponsored Product Listings can show up, how do they work?


Amazon Sponsored Product Listings run based on keyword-targeting. You can either provide the keywords you want to target or let Amazon automatically find relevant keywords for you. Then you place a bid on the relevant keywords that you’d like to target. If your big wins and matches the search terms, then your ad will be displayed to the shopper. You pay per click, like with Google AdWords or Bing, so you are only paying when someone clicks on your ad and views your product page. You have the ability to control your bids and budgets, depending on how much you’d like to spend on each campaign.


Amazon Sponsored Product Listings Requirements

The requirements to use advertise your products as Sponsored Products, according to Amazon, are as follows:

  1. Have an active Amazon Professional Seller account. (If you do not have an Amazon Professional Seller account, you can view our quick tutorial on how to upgrade your Amazon Seller account here.)

  2. Have the ability to ship to all addresses in the US.

  3. Product listings in one or more of the available categories. Products must be new. Used products are not eligible for advertising.

  4. For Sponsored Products, eligibility for the Buy Box. If you create a Sponsored Products ad for a product listing that is not eligible for the Buy Box, your ad will not display to Amazon shoppers. Ads that are not eligible are flagged in Campaign Manager under the Advertising tab in Seller Central. Headline Search Ads will be shown to shoppers regardless of who is winning the Buy Box.

Here is a list of the categories that are currently open to advertising:

Sponsored List


Why should I use Amazon Sponsored Product Listings?

So now that you have a general understanding of what Amazon Sponsored Product Listings are and how they work, why are they so important and why should you use them?


Firstly, it’s always up to each individual seller to decide whether using paid advertising on Amazon is what’s best for their business. With that said, advertising on Amazon is beneficial in many ways. Amazon Sponsored Product Listings help promote new brands, greatly improve visibility, quickly clear inventory, or even increase sales for items that are already selling well.

The key thing that makes using Amazon Sponsored Product Listings so important is that it can actually help boost your organic rankings. Since the crucial aspect to good organic ranking is a high sales rate, every sale generated, even those gained through using an ad, will lead to a better organic ranking. Plus, you gain access to vital information that you can only get by using Amazon ad campaigns like exact search volume, which is measured by impressions, and the click-through rate of a product for any keyword you want to target.


These numbers can prove immensely valuable because they will help you determine which keywords are the most important based on impressions, as well as which keywords that are performing best for your products compared to your competitors. These high performing keywords should be added to your product listing, ideally in the product title. Doing this will help improve your ranking and conversion rate.


The great thing about using Amazon Sponsored Product Listings is that you don’t necessarily have to start out with a huge budget. You can start with a small amount of money to do some testing and see what works best before investing more money.


Making the decision to utilize advertising on Amazon deserves careful consideration. Knowing how best If you’d like to speak to one of our knowledgeable Product Specialists to get more information, please schedule an appointment here.


Try Sellozo!

Sellozo offers a simple, powerful platform that makes it easy to manage and optimize your Amazon Sponsored Product Ads and – thanks to machine-learning – programmatically alters bids to help your ads beat out the competition.




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