Amazon DSP Management for Every Advertiser
- Samaira Singh
- 9h
- 10 min read
Every day, new sellers land on the Amazon marketplace with products that solve real problems for customers. With these sellers, both old and new, the advertising landscape becomes highly competitive.
Not only do you have to reach your ideal customer in this competition, but you also have to do so intelligently by meeting them where they are. This is where Amazon DSP helps you.
What is Amazon DSP, and how does it work?
Amazon DSP is a demand-side platform used to buy ad spaces or ad spots across digital channels programmatically. This means you can buy display ads (static or dynamic) - all programmatically.
How does Amazon DSP do that?
It taps into Amazon's shoppers' data, which stores shopping signals such as what users search for, what they buy, and how they behave.
Along with its own inventory, it offers cross-channel reach with Ads on Amazon-owned properties and access to off-Amazon placements.
Therefore, DSP helps you explore selling opportunities beyond Amazon’s marketplace, such as Fire-TV, Echo, devices, etc.
Unlike sponsored products, DSP reaches audiences everywhere. It is for people who want to run full funnel campaigns - from awareness to conversion - in one platform.
Key differences between Amazon DSP and Sponsored Display
Amazon DSP and Sponsored Display are two powerful tools that seem similar but serve very different purposes.
Here’s a quick comparison table for your understanding.
When you’re just starting a business, Sponsored Display (SD) is a great fit to enter the Amazon advertising. It’s simple, easier to set up, and you can reach shoppers directly within the Amazon marketplace, where customers are already coming with the intent of buying. With Sponsored Display, you can also give your brand a little more visibility by extending your reach to Amazon's partner websites. And this should not stretch your budget too much. Your ads can appear as images or short videos on Amazon's product detail pages or search results.
Sponsored Display is a smart choice for small and mid-sized businesses when the target is to build sales momentum without managing complex advanced campaign tools.
But once that foundation is built, and you want to take your advertising further, you can step up to Amazon DSP. It opens a new level of exposure for you. Amazon DSP is designed for advertisers who want deeper control, advanced targeting, and wider reach. You get access to Amazon's first-party data and a chance to connect with customers beyond Amazon. Because of its flexibility and data-driven approach, it works best for businesses with a higher budget that want to build awareness, encourage consideration, and retarget high-intent shoppers.
So, if your goal is to expand beyond Amazon’s marketplace and connect with shoppers everywhere they spend time online, Amazon DSP is the tool for you.
Why is Amazon DSP so important?
First Party Data Advantage
Cookie depreciation and privacy regulations today make it very difficult to access user data. But Amazon’s first-party data can be a competitive advantage. The rich shopping signals of Amazon DSP can fuel smart targeting of ideal customers.
Full-Funnel Reach
Brands can no longer succeed by aiming only for the bottom-funnel conversion ads. Customers who visit Amazon are usually aware of their problem and the product that can solve it. The chance for you to grab customers’ attention is less if they have already made a buying decision. You gain their interest by building awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention. So, you have to meet audiences where they are. Platforms like e-commerce, video streaming, connected TV, and audio channels are crucial.
Automation and efficiency
Programmatic advertising means buying ad spots via software. You skip manually negotiating with publishers with such solutions. Amazon DSP is just that; it brings automation, real-time insights, and AI-driven optimization tools that improve your selling performance. Its features, such as the new forecasting experience, give advertisers the opportunity to strategize better. With KPI predictions, you can accelerate campaign performance.
How to access Amazon DSP?
Since Amazon DSP helps you expand your reach within and off Amazon, accessing it highly depends on your budget. There are two ways to use Amazon DSP:
Direct access through Amazon
This option is for people who want Amazon’s team to handle the DSP setup and management. The Amazon team itself takes care of your DSP campaigns. The challenge here is that it requires a minimum monthly spend of $50,000.
DSP Partner
If you do not have a high spend budget, you can work with a DSP partner like Sellermate.ai and use their self-serve platform to strategize your campaigns better. It is a more flexible option for smaller businesses or mid-sized sellers. Moreover, since the agency provides a self-serve tool, you also benefit from data transparency.
Many advertisers struggle to make the most of Amazon DSP because of its steep learning curve and complex setup. As fast as you may want to launch campaigns, you still have to build your own templates and workflows. On the other hand, Amazon DSP self-serve tools like Sellermate can help you launch faster with its easy features. With Sellermate.ai, you get:
Faster campaign setup: Utilize pre-built templates and guided workflows to save time on setting up campaigns.
More control over Ads: You do not have to rely on external agencies to navigate through your campaigns. Instead, you can launch, adjust, and pause campaigns yourself.
Real-time Dashboard: With features like a real-time dashboard, you get insights to improve your performance in one place. Alongside forecasting, integrations help you make data-driven decisions quickly.
With these capabilities, Sellermate.ai simplifies campaign setup and helps you get more value out of Amazon DSP.
Here’s how the self-serve tool Sellermate gets you started:
Accessing Amazon DSP without a high-spend budget.
Launching DSP campaigns with accurate audience and placement selection.
You can consistently refine bids and targeting to improve performance.
You can target high-intent customers with precise messaging.
Integrate DSP data with your first-party analytics for complete attribution.
Save time with templates built for awareness, retargeting, and loyalty stages.
You can learn more about Sellermate’s DSP solutions here.
A closer look at Amazon DSP: Inventory and Ad formats
Amazon DSP inventory falls into these categories:
Amazon-Owned & Operated Network: Inventory on Amazon’s own properties (website, Fire TV, Echo Show, etc.)
Amazon Publisher Direct: Amazon’s direct deals with publishers
Third-Party Exchanges / Open Web: Inventory outside Amazon’s direct ecosystem
In September 2025, Amazon DSP consolidated the three categories into one intuitive interface. This simplification enabled sellers to access eligible inventory without toggling between separate views. This not only saves time on planning but delivers proven performance benefits.
The platform supports the following creative formats for advertisements:
Display ads (desktop, mobile, native)
Video ads (in-feed, streaming, CTV)
Audio ads (as applicable)
Connected TV inventory
The budgeting, bidding & optimization process
You can structure your campaigns into orders → line items → ad groups. You can set targeting, budget, bidding strategy for automation, as well as explore manual controls. This helps you leverage the capabilities of Amazon DSP fully.
Using Amazon DSP to maximize performance across the funnel
To get value from Amazon DSP, you must start thinking about your campaign's full funnel. From awareness to retention, you need a different strategy. Let’s understand how you can apply the platform for each stage.
Awareness: Get your brand or product in front of as many relevant audiences as possible.
To do this, you can use Amazon DSP's data to fetch people who are currently buying in your category or who match the ideal customer demographics. Then use display or video ads on available platforms and trusted partner sites.
In this stage, you measure success with reach, impressions, video views, and brand lift.
Consideration: In this stage, you try to get your potential customers' attention. This is a more crucial step.
You can narrow your audience by focusing on those similar to your current customers. Alongside, you need better creatives and interactive ads to hold the interest. Use placement controls like above/below fold to increase visibility.
In this stage, you can track engagement metrics to see how people interact with your ads.
Conversion: Encourage this audience to convert and make a purchase from you.
In this stage, you are retargeting people who have visited your website, viewed a product, or added to cart. They may have also browsed relevant items on your competitors’ website. You can use dynamic creatives based on their shopping behavior. For stronger targeting, Amazon’s first-party data gives you precision to reach the relevant customers that convert.
Monitor key metrics like CPA, ROAS, and customer lifetime value.
Retention / Loyalty: You can encourage repeat purchases and upsells by keeping customers engaged.
Customers who have already made a purchase are interested in learning more about you. A brand story that connects you to them or exclusive offers can interest them. By using Amazon DSP’s data, you can identify these customers and control how often they see your ads. Personalized messages like - here’s something special for you, can unlock more selling opportunities.
Example: Launching a new Skincare Line with Amazon DSP:
A mid-sized D2C beauty brand launches a natural skincare product with the objective of reaching customers across the purchase journey:
Awareness stage: They target audiences interested in skincare and who may have shopped for skincare products recently. With video and Display Ads, they introduce the product’s natural benefits on Amazon and Fire TV.
Consideration: They reach shoppers who have searched for “natural skincare” or visited related pages. They tell a richer story through testimonials and product stories using in-feed native ads.
Conversion: In this stage, they retarget shoppers who viewed the products or added to cart, but didn’t purchase. Timely reminders encourage them to purchase.
Retention: They reconnect with existing customers through exclusive deals.
This way, they distribute their budget across all stages to build momentum and maximize impact by leveraging Amazon DSP’s audience data to meet customers at every point in the journey.
By now, you must have realized that Amazon DSP is a powerful tool, but it still isn't magic. All campaigns you run through it need a thoughtful strategy, careful operations, and consistent management. Throughout the campaign journey, you may face challenges that can affect your performance.
Here are a few key challenges with Amazon DSP that you must know:
Steep Learning Curve: Amazon DSP is complex, and understanding its workflows, inventory, and bidding strategies needs time and expertise. This learning process can temporarily affect campaign structure.
High Minimum Spend: DSP requires a higher budget and more time to show results as compared to sponsored products or sponsored display. Therefore, you must plan your budget carefully and set realistic expectations.
Accurate Attribution: Running ads doesn’t show the full impact. You must connect DSP data with the tools that track the influence created on customer behavior.
Creative Fatigue: Showing the same ad too often can annoy your audience. Self-serve tools like Sellermate help you use frequency caps or schedule ads strategically to keep creatives fresh and maintain engagement.
Final Thoughts
Amazon DSP is a vital channel to reach the right customers at every stage of your selling process. But if you struggle with understanding its complexity, or face challenges with its high budget demands, you can still leverage the capabilities of Amazon DSP by switching to self-serve tools. It can transform your engagement with customers.
Using the self-serve DSP tools makes accessing audience data so much easier that it can only get you better sales. Even the lower-budget advertisers can benefit from SellerMate.AI and run smarter full-funnel campaigns. Book a Demo here.
FAQs on Amazon DSP you should know
Q1. What exactly is Amazon DSP, and how does it differ from regular Amazon Ads?
Ans- Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is a programmatic tool that lets you with better advertising. You can buy display, video, and audio ads both on and off Amazon using the Amazon DSP tool. Unlike Sponsored Products or Sponsored Display ads, DSP gives you access to Amazon’s first-party shopper data. This data is very helpful in reaching audiences beyond Amazon’s marketplace. Therefore, using Amazon DSP, you can strategically place ads on Amazon, across Amazon's owned platforms, and beyond. It’s ideal for brands running full-funnel campaigns from awareness to loyalty.
Q2. Is Amazon DSP suitable for small businesses or only for large brands?
Ans- DSP was initially built for high-budget advertisers only, but today even small and mid-sized businesses can access it through DSP partners like Sellermate.ai. Partners offer self-serve tools and flexible pricing so you don’t need to meet Amazon’s $50,000 minimum spend requirement to access Amazon DSP.
Q3. How does Amazon DSP help with customer targeting?
Ans- Amazon DSP uses Amazon’s first-party data that includes search behavior, purchase history, and browsing signals of the customers, to help you reach your ideal audience. You can use this data to target audiences based on interests, demographics, or shopping intent, and even retarget users who viewed your product but didn’t buy. This level of precision makes DSP a powerful advertising solution.
Q4. What types of ads can I run through Amazon DSP?
Ans- You can run a variety of formats such as display ads (desktop, mobile, native), video ads (in-feed, streaming, CTV), and audio ads. DSP also supports Connected TV inventory, giving your brand a multi-channel presence across the streaming TV screens.
Q5. How much budget do I need to start with Amazon DSP?
Ans- To work directly with Amazon is a little high budget, the minimum monthly spend being $50,000. However, you can start with smaller budgets by working with a DSP partner like Sellermate.
Q6. What are the biggest challenges of using Amazon DSP?
Ans- Patience to understand the DSP workflows and the minimum budget requirements are two big challenges you can face with Amazon DSP. Be ready to go through the learning curve of the DSP, and you must have a high budget.
Q7. How can I measure if my Amazon DSP campaigns are successful?
Ans- To gauge your campaigns, you must look at the metrics. However, your metrics will depend on the stage of your campaign.
Awareness stage: Impressions, reach, and video; Consideration stage: Engagement rate and click-throughs; Conversion stage: CPA, ROAS, and purchase rate; Retention stage: Repeat purchase rate and lifetime value
You can also use DSP’s forecasting tools and real-time dashboards to monitor KPIs and adjust your campaigns.
Q8. Can I manage Amazon DSP campaigns myself?
Ans- Yes. You will need a self-serve DSP tool like Sellermate.ai, and you can manage your campaigns independently using pre-built templates, guided workflows, and real-time dashboards. The tool will also help you launch, pause, and optimize campaigns yourself —without relying on external agencies—while still benefiting from full data transparency and Amazon’s shopper insights.
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