What Are Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), and How Do They Work?

Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), now known as Amazon Ads, is a powerful suite of advertising tools designed to help sellers promote their products, increase visibility, and drive sales. Although Amazon officially rebranded AMS to Amazon Advertising, many sellers still refer to it by its original name.

With millions of products competing for attention on Amazon, simply having a great product listing isn’t enough. Amazon Advertising allows sellers to strategically position their products in front of potential buyers through targeted ads.

These ads appear in search results, product detail pages, and even off-Amazon, helping sellers capture high-intent customers looking to make a purchase.

Understanding and leveraging Amazon Ads is essential for sellers looking to scale their business, improve brand recognition, and optimize ad spend for maximum return on investment (ROI).

Whether you’re a new seller launching your first product or an established brand looking to dominate your category, Amazon Ads (also known as AMS) provides the tools needed to succeed.

What Is Amazon Marketing Services (Amazon Ads)?

Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), now renamed Amazon Ads, is Amazon’s comprehensive advertising platform for third-party sellers and brands. It offers various advertising solutions, such as Sponsored Products Ads, Sponsored Brands Ads, and Sponsored Display Ads, that help sellers boost discoverability, increase traffic, and enhance conversions.

Why did AMS rebrand to Amazon Ads?

In 2018, Amazon consolidated its advertising tools under the Amazon Advertising (now simply Amazon Ads) brand to simplify its offerings.

Despite the name change, many sellers and advertisers still refer to it as AMS because it was widely known under that name. The features and functions remain largely the same, with continuous improvements to make ad campaigns more efficient and effective.

How Amazon Ads works

Amazon Ads provides sellers multiple ways to reach potential customers at different stages of the buying journey.

By leveraging Amazon’s vast database of customer search behavior, demographics, and purchase history, sellers can create highly targeted ad campaigns that drive results.

Here’s how Amazon Ads works:

1. Sellers create ad campaigns based on their marketing goals.
2. Amazon displays ads to shoppers who match the targeting criteria.
3. Sellers only pay when someone clicks on their ad (Pay-Per-Click model).
4. Data is collected to analyze performance and optimize future ad campaigns.

By continuously refining ad strategies based on performance insights, sellers can improve their ROI and reduce wasted ad spend.

Why Amazon Ads is essential for sellers

Selling on Amazon is more competitive than ever. With thousands of sellers in each category, it’s easy for a great product to get lost in the search results. Amazon Advertising solves this problem by ensuring products get the necessary visibility to generate sales.

Key benefits of Amazon Ads

1. Increased product visibility
   Amazon prioritizes paid ads in search results, meaning sponsored products appear before organic listings. This increases exposure, especially for new products.
2. Higher conversion rates
   Since Amazon ads target shoppers actively searching for similar products, conversion rates are higher than on other ad platforms.
3. Better brand awareness
   Sponsored Brands and Display Ads boost brand recognition and allow sellers to showcase multiple products from your catalog simultaneously.
4. Advanced targeting options
   Sellers can target ads based on keywords, product categories, customer demographics, and purchase behavior.
5. Measurable results & data-driven insights
   With Amazon’s detailed analytics, sellers can track the performance of their ads in real-time, making it easy to adjust strategies and improve ROI.
6. Competitive edge
   By investing in Amazon Ads, sellers can outbid competitors and capture more market share, ensuring their products appear before the competition.

Many sellers find it difficult to gain traction without Amazon Ads, even with well-optimized listings. A strong advertising strategy can make all the difference in achieving long-term success on Amazon.

An overview of Amazon Advertising tools

Amazon offers several advertising options to fit different marketing goals. Below is an in-depth look at the advertising tools available to Amazon sellers.

Sponsored Products Ads

Sponsored Products are Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads that promote individual product listings. These ads are the most common type of Amazon PPC ad and appear:

• In search results when shoppers enter relevant keywords that match your product.
• On product detail pages under “Sponsored Products Related to This Item.”

Best for: Sellers looking to drive immediate sales for specific products, especially for product launches or seasonal promotions.

Sponsored Brands Ads

Sponsored Brands are banner-style ads at the top of the search results page. These ads display your brand logo, custom tagline, and multiple products in a single ad. With Sponsored Brands, you can also do video ads.

These ads help sellers boost brand awareness and drive traffic to their Amazon Store or product listings.

Best for: Sellers looking to increase brand recognition and promote multiple products simultaneously.

Sponsored Display Ads

Sponsored Display ads are retargeting ads that keep products visible to potential customers on and off Amazon. These ads:

• Appear on and off Amazon (on third-party websites and apps). On Amazon, you will see these ads appear on competing product listings.
• Target shoppers who have previously viewed or searched for similar products.

Best for: Retargeting customers who didn’t make a purchase initially but may be interested in buying later.

Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform)

Amazon DSP is an advanced advertising solution for enterprise brands that want to reach audiences beyond Amazon’s platform. It allows advertisers to programmatically buy display, video, and audio ads across Amazon-owned sites (IMDb) and external websites.

Best for: Large brands with a big budget that want broader audience reach and advanced demographic targeting.

Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)

AMC is a data analytics platform that helps advertisers gain insights into customer behavior. It consolidates data from multiple advertising touchpoints to help sellers understand the customer journey.

Best for: Sellers and brands that rely on data-driven decisions to optimize advertising strategies.

How to set up an Amazon Advertising campaign

Running a successful Amazon Advertising campaign requires a well-structured approach. Follow these steps to launch and optimize your ads.

Step 1: Access Amazon Advertising

• Log in to Amazon Seller Central or Amazon Advertising Console.
• Navigate to the Campaign Manager to start a new campaign.

Step 2: Choose the right ad type

Select the best ad format based on your marketing goals:

• Sponsored Products – Best for individual product promotion.
• Sponsored Brands – Ideal for brand awareness and showcasing multiple products.
• Sponsored Display – Best for retargeting past shoppers.

Step 3: Set a budget and bidding strategy

• Start with automatic targeting to gather keyword data.
• Adjust bids based on competition and performance.
• Set a daily budget to control ad spend and maximize ROI.

Step 4: Monitor and analyze campaign performance

• Track Click-Through Rate (CTR), conversion rate, and ACoS.
• Identify high-performing keywords and adjust bids accordingly.

Step 5: Optimize your campaigns for better results

• Use negative keywords to prevent irrelevant clicks.
• Test different ad creatives and audience targeting.
• Continuously refine bids to improve profitability.

Using Jungle Scout to optimize Amazon Advertising campaigns

Jungle Scout is a powerful tool that helps Amazon sellers optimize their advertising campaigns by providing in-depth data insights, competitive analysis, and performance tracking. Leveraging Jungle Scout alongside Amazon Ads can significantly improve targeting, budget efficiency, and overall campaign success.

Maximize ad investment value

Jungle Scout’s Cobalt Ad Accelerator is designed to help sellers maximize their ad performance by providing detailed analytics, advanced customizable automations, eliminate wasted spend on ad campaigns, and competitor intelligence.

Manage a large number of Amazon ad campaigns and improve your CTR by 25% and reduce CPC by 20% with optimized PPC campaigns.

Data-driven insights for keyword research

Jungle Scout offers a comprehensive keyword research tool called Keyword Scout that helps sellers identify high-performing keywords with substantial search volume and low competition.

By analyzing real-time data trends, sellers can refine their ad targeting, ensuring their Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns reach the most relevant audiences. Optimizing keywords based on these insights increases ad visibility and maximizes ROI.

Performance dashboards for success tracking

Tracking ad performance is crucial for optimizing Amazon ad campaigns, and Jungle Scout’s Advertising Analytics tool makes this process seamless. Sellers can monitor key metrics such as Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS), click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates in a visually intuitive format. These insights help sellers make data-driven decisions to improve campaign effectiveness and profitability.

Competitive Intelligence for better strategies

Jungle Scout’s Competitive Intelligence tool provides valuable insights into competitors’ advertising strategies. To uncover market gaps and opportunities, sellers can analyze their rivals’ top-performing keywords, ad placements, and bidding trends. By leveraging this data, sellers can refine their ad campaigns, adjust bidding strategies, and stay ahead in highly competitive categories.

With Jungle Scout, sellers can improve ad efficiency, reduce wasted spend, and increase conversions.

Scale Your Business with Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising (formerly AMS) is essential for sellers who want to increase sales, improve brand awareness, and gain a competitive advantage. By using data-driven strategies and tools like Jungle Scout, sellers can maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns and achieve long-term growth.

Brian Connolly

Ecommerce Expert & Writer at Jungle Scout