Sponsored Brand Ads on Amazon: 2026 Formats, Costs, KPIs
TL;DR
Sponsored Brands are pay-per-click banner ads on Amazon that display your brand logo, a custom headline, and multiple products to shoppers browsing search results. They require Brand Registry enrollment and come in three formats: Product Collection, Store Spotlight, and Video. Unlike Sponsored Products, which drive direct conversions for individual listings, Sponsored Brands build brand awareness, acquire new customers, and shape how demand flows across your catalog. The key metric to watch is new-to-brand percentage, not just ACOS.
Sponsored Brands are customizable pay-per-click ads on Amazon that feature your brand logo, a custom headline, and a curated selection of your products. Originally called Headline Search Ads, these ads appear at the top, middle, or bottom of Amazon search results pages. Their primary purpose is to help shoppers discover your brand and product line while they’re actively searching for products in your category.
The distinction matters: while Sponsored Products captures demand at the individual product level, a sponsored brand ad builds awareness, drives consideration, and expands your share of voice across an entire category. Think of Sponsored Products as catching a fish, and Sponsored Brands as casting a wider net.
If you’re running Amazon ads or evaluating whether to start, understanding how Sponsored Brands fit into your overall PPC architecture is essential for allocating budget correctly.
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How Sponsored Brands Work
Billing Models
Sponsored Brands offer two billing options. The first is the familiar cost-per-click (CPC) model, where you pay each time a shopper clicks your ad. The second is vCPM (viewable cost per thousand impressions), branded by Amazon as “Grow Brand Impression Share.” With vCPM, you’re charged based on the number of times your ad is shown, not the number of clicks it receives. This makes vCPM a better fit for awareness and consideration campaigns where visibility itself is the goal.
Sponsored Products, by contrast, only offers CPC billing.
The Three Ad Formats
Product Collection displays your logo and a custom headline alongside multiple products. In January 2026, Amazon shifted product collections to an AI-powered format that requires between 3 and 10 ASINs and removes custom creative control. Larger catalogs benefit from increased discoverability under this change, while smaller brands need to restructure campaigns to meet the three-ASIN minimum.
Store Spotlight sends shoppers directly to your Amazon Brand Store when they click. It displays four products alongside your headline and logo. You can only use this format if you have a Brand Store built out, which makes it the most curated option of the three.
Video ads appear on search results and product pages, auto-playing without sound. They link to a product detail page and include your brand name, logo, and product image. In 2026, video has become the dominant Sponsored Brands format. Video ads deliver on average 1.6 times higher CTR than static headline ads and roughly 1.3 times higher conversion rates. If you’re only running static ads, you’re leaving performance on the table.
Where the Ads Appear
Sponsored brand ads show up above, in the middle of, or at the bottom of Amazon search results. The top-of-search banner is the most visible placement. If your brand isn’t occupying it on your category and branded search terms, a competitor probably is.
Eligibility
Not everyone can run Sponsored Brands. Unlike Sponsored Products, which any professional seller can launch, Sponsored Brands require active enrollment in Amazon Brand Registry, which itself requires a registered trademark. The ad type is available to vendors, book vendors, Kindle Direct Publishing authors, agencies, and Brand Registry-enrolled professional sellers.
If your ads aren’t delivering at all, the issue could be structural rather than strategic. Our guide on why Sponsored Brand ads get no impressions walks through the most common causes.
Sponsored Brands vs. Sponsored Products vs. Sponsored Display
| Dimension | Sponsored Products | Sponsored Brands | Sponsored Display |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Direct conversion | Brand awareness + consideration | Retargeting + audience reach |
| Creative control | Uses listing data automatically | Custom logo, headline, image/video | Auto-generated or custom |
| Eligibility | Any professional seller | Brand Registry required | Brand Registry required |
| Billing | CPC only | CPC or vCPM | CPC or vCPM |
| New-to-brand metrics | Not available | Full reporting | Available |
The most important row in that table is the last one. Sponsored Products tells you nothing about whether the customer who bought your product was already familiar with your brand. Sponsored Brands reports new-to-brand metrics, which means you can actually measure customer acquisition, not just sales.
This distinction is where many sellers get frustrated. Practitioners on Amazon Seller Central forums frequently report that their sponsored brand campaigns show high clicks and impressions but few direct sales compared to Sponsored Products. One 10-year seller described Sponsored Products ACOS of 10 to 15% and ROAS between $7 and $10, while their reactivated Sponsored Brands campaign delivered ACOS of 50%+ and ROAS of $2 or less. They abandoned the format entirely.
That’s a measurement error, not a format failure. Judging Sponsored Brands by Sponsored Products-level ACOS targets is like measuring a billboard’s effectiveness by counting how many people walked into the store within five minutes of seeing it. The formats serve different purposes.
For brands ready to go beyond search ads into programmatic display and audience targeting, Amazon DSP is the natural next step up the funnel.
Key Metrics for Sponsored Brands
New-to-Brand (NTB) Orders and Percentage
A new-to-brand order is a purchase made by a shopper who hasn’t bought from your brand on Amazon in the past 12 months. NTB percentage measures the share of ad-attributed orders that come from these first-time brand buyers.
This is the metric that justifies Sponsored Brands investment to leadership teams. Without it, sponsored brand campaigns will always lose the budget conversation to Sponsored Products, which shows stronger direct ROAS but tells you nothing about whether you’re growing your customer base or just recapturing existing demand.
Brand Store Page Views
This metric tracks how many Brand Store pages were viewed as a result of your Sponsored Brands campaigns. It creates a direct connection between ad spend and engagement within your storefront, which is especially valuable for Store Spotlight campaigns.
Benchmark Data for 2026
Sponsored Brands CTR typically runs between 0.20% and 0.40% for static formats. Sponsored Brands Video, however, shows an average CTR of 0.89%, which is roughly 2.6 times higher than static ads, with a conversion rate of 11.2%.
Platform-wide ACOS was nearly 25% to 30% in 2025 and is projected to climb to 32% to 35% in 2026 as CPCs continue rising. If your ACOS numbers feel worse than last year, you’re not alone.
For sellers trying to understand whether their CTR is actually a problem or just normal, our breakdown on diagnosing low CTR on Amazon provides specific thresholds by ad type and category.
Why Sponsored Brands Matter for Amazon Sellers
Brand Defense
If you’re not running a sponsored brand campaign on your own branded search terms, competitors are showing up there instead. The top-of-search banner is prime real estate, and Amazon doesn’t reserve it for you just because shoppers searched your brand name. You have to bid for it.
Customer Acquisition Visibility
NTB metrics give you something no other Amazon ad type provides: proof that your advertising is bringing in new customers. This shifts the conversation from “how much did we spend” to “how much did our customer base grow.”
Full-Funnel Synergy
Data shows that advertisers using both Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands together see a 31% higher ROAS on average compared to running either format alone. The formats are complementary, not competing. Sponsored Products converts demand. Sponsored Brands creates and shapes it.
The 2026 Reframe: Demand Pathway, Not Just Awareness
Practitioners and agencies are increasingly treating Sponsored Brands as more than a top-of-funnel awareness lever. As Feedvisor’s 2026 analysis puts it, sponsored brand advertising has become a control layer for how demand is created, shaped, and directed across Amazon. Treating it as “just awareness” is one of the fastest ways to underperform.
Understanding how paid visibility and organic rank compound over time is what separates good Amazon advertisers from great ones. Our guide on the PPC and organic rank flywheel explains this dynamic in detail.
Get a free brand audit to evaluate your ad structure →
Common Mistakes with Sponsored Brands
Judging performance by Sponsored Products ACOS targets. This is the single most common mistake. Sponsored Brands serves different goals. Measure it by NTB percentage, brand store engagement, and overall TACOS contribution, not by the same direct-response metrics you apply to Sponsored Products.
Using Broad match without negatives. Community members on Amazon Seller Central forums have flagged a significant shift: in the last six months, Amazon has changed how Broad, Phrase, and Exact match work for Sponsored Brands. Broad is now so expansive that ads can show impressions even when there’s zero keyword match. Several experienced sellers now use only Phrase and Exact match in their sponsored brand campaigns. If you’re running Broad without aggressive negative keyword lists, you’re almost certainly wasting ad spend.
Sending traffic to product detail pages instead of your Brand Store. In most cases, driving traffic to a Brand Store is preferable. It increases basket size, enables cross-selling, and removes competitor ad visibility from the shopping experience. The product detail page is cluttered with competitor placements. Your Brand Store is not.
Running only static formats. With video ads delivering 2 to 3 times the CTR of static ads and roughly 13% higher conversion rates, skipping video is leaving measurable performance gains behind.
Sponsored Brands Beyond Amazon
The sponsored brand concept isn’t exclusive to Amazon. Walmart offers its own version, earlier known as Search Brand Amplifier (SBA). It’s a premium search placement that showcases your brand and a curated product portfolio to customers actively searching on Walmart’s site and app.
Key differences: Walmart displays up to four products per campaign (prioritizing those with the highest conversion potential), and brands can include up to 10 products per campaign. There is no brand storefront equivalent on Walmart. Amazon allows brands to build full landing pages through Brand Stores, which gives Amazon advertisers more control over the post-click experience.
As retail media networks expand, expect sponsored brand ad formats to become standard across more marketplaces. Brands building a unified marketplace strategy will want to understand the nuances on each platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Sponsored Brand on Amazon?
A Sponsored Brand is a pay-per-click ad format on Amazon that displays your brand logo, a custom headline, and multiple products in Amazon search results. It requires Brand Registry enrollment and is designed to drive brand awareness and new customer acquisition rather than direct product conversions.
What is the difference between Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products?
Sponsored Products promotes a single product listing and is available to any professional seller. Sponsored Brands promotes the brand itself with a custom logo, headline, and multiple products or video. Sponsored Brands requires Brand Registry, offers vCPM billing, and provides new-to-brand metrics that Sponsored Products does not.
Do you need Brand Registry for Sponsored Brands?
Yes. Brand Registry enrollment with an active registered trademark is required to run Sponsored Brands campaigns. This applies to professional sellers, vendors, and agencies alike.
What is new-to-brand percentage and why does it matter?
New-to-brand percentage measures the share of your Sponsored Brands ad-attributed orders that come from shoppers who haven’t purchased from your brand on Amazon in the past 12 months. It’s the clearest indicator of whether your ad spend is growing your customer base or simply recapturing existing buyers.
Why does my Sponsored Brands campaign have high ACOS compared to Sponsored Products?
Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products serve different purposes. Sponsored Products is optimized for direct conversions and typically shows lower ACOS. Sponsored Brands is designed for brand discovery and customer acquisition. Comparing them on ACOS alone is a measurement error. Evaluate Sponsored Brands using NTB metrics, brand store page views, and its contribution to overall TACOS.
What is the best Sponsored Brands format in 2026?
Sponsored Brands Video is the highest-performing format in 2026, delivering roughly 1.6 times higher CTR and 1.3 times higher conversion rates than static formats. If budget is limited, prioritize video over static product collection ads.
Are Sponsored Brands available on Walmart?
Yes. Walmart offers a Sponsored Brands equivalent that showcases your brand and up to four products in search results. The key difference is that Walmart has no brand storefront feature, so the post-click experience is more limited than on Amazon.
How much do Sponsored Brands cost?
Sponsored Brands operates on either a CPC (cost-per-click) or vCPM (cost per thousand viewable impressions) model. There’s no fixed cost. Platform-wide ACOS is trending toward 32% to 35% in 2026 as CPCs continue to climb. Your actual costs depend on category competition, keyword selection, and bid strategy.
Not sure if your Sponsored Brands campaigns are structured correctly, or whether your ad architecture is leaving money on the table?