What Is Amazon DSP? Ad Setup, Costs & Guide
Clean IP picks: Static IPs from $1.5 each, Dynamic IPs from $0.5/GB
For Amazon sellers and cross-border brands, Sponsored Ads primarily reach shoppers who are already browsing or searching for products.
To expand brand awareness, attract new customers, or re-engage potential buyers, advertisers may also need to reach audiences beyond Amazon's shopping environment.
Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is a programmatic advertising platform that allows advertisers to reach targeted audiences across Amazon-owned properties and third-party websites, apps, and streaming services.
What Is Amazon DSP Advertising?
1. Amazon DSP: Definition and Recent Changes
A demand-side platform (DSP) is a technology platform that lets advertisers buy ad inventory across multiple publishers through automated bidding. Real-time bidding (RTB) is one of the most common ways to purchase this inventory.
In September 2026, Amazon Ads announced that it would integrate the capabilities of the former Amazon DSP into Amazon Ads Agent.
The former DSP's display, video, and audio advertising capabilities are now grouped under DVA. DVA+ is a new AI-powered campaign type that automates campaign setup based on advertising goals and budgets.
Advanced Settings retains more granular controls for audience targeting, inventory, frequency, and custom bidding.
2. Amazon DSP vs. Sponsored Ads
The two solutions serve different but complementary purposes. Sponsored Ads reach shoppers who are already searching or browsing on Amazon, while Amazon DSP extends reach beyond the shopping environment and supports remarketing.
3. Key Benefits of Amazon DSP
▸ First-party audience data: Amazon Audiences uses shopping, browsing, and streaming signals to build audience segments, including In-market, Lifestyle, Interests, and Life Events. Remarketing uses custom audiences, with lookback windows tailored to the buying cycle.
▸ Broad ad inventory: Reach audiences across Amazon-owned properties such as Amazon.com, Prime Video, Twitch, and Fire TV, as well as third-party websites and apps. Buying options include real-time bidding, private marketplace (PMP) deals, private auctions, and programmatic guaranteed deals.
▸ Available to non-Amazon sellers: Brands do not need to sell on Amazon to use eligible Amazon Ads services. They can direct traffic to their own websites, making DSP relevant to industries such as automotive, finance, and travel.
How to Run Amazon DSP Campaigns
1. Define Your Advertising Goals and Audience Strategy
Start by defining your objective: building brand awareness, increasing consideration, or remarketing to users who viewed products but did not purchase. Your objective should guide your audience segments, creative formats, and performance metrics.
2. Choose an Account Access Option
▸ Self-service: Eligible advertisers can manage campaigns, audiences, bids, and budgets through their Amazon Ads accounts. Account eligibility and available features depend on the market.
▸ Managed service: Amazon's advertising team helps plan and manage campaigns. Minimum budget requirements may apply and vary by country or region.
▸ Agency partnership: Advertisers can work with an agency that has the required account access. Confirm service fees, minimum budgets, account ownership, and data access in the agreement.
Third-party ad management tools can provide bulk campaign operations and reporting integrations, but they are not the same as agency seats or account access.
3. Prepare Ad Creatives and Select Inventory
Prepare assets for display, online video, streaming TV, and audio placements. Specifications vary by placement. Some accounts may also have access to Amazon's creative tools for generating adapted versions of ad assets.
4. Set Bids, Budgets, and Frequency Caps
CPM is a common bidding and cost metric in programmatic advertising. Advertisers set bid limits and campaign budgets based on their goals.
Frequency caps limit how often an individual user or household sees an ad within a specified period. Set limits based on your objectives, audience size, and budget.
5. Monitor Campaign Performance and Optimize
Use Amazon Ads reports to track impressions, clicks, conversions, and spend.
For cross-channel analysis, eligible teams can use Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), a privacy-safe analytics environment built on AWS Clean Rooms.
AMC access is not automatically included with every Amazon DSP account.
Amazon DSP Costs and Budget Requirements
1. How CPM Pricing Works
Programmatic advertising commonly uses CPM (cost per thousand impressions) as a bidding and cost metric.
Actual costs depend on ad inventory, audience competition, ad format, target market, and bidding strategy. Settlement terms may also vary across deal types.
2. Self-Service, Managed Service, and Agency Fees
Managed-service minimum budgets vary by market, and agency fees are not based on a universal industry rate. Before signing up, clarify the budget, service fees, account ownership, and data access rights.
3. How to Plan Your Advertising Budget
Start with a limited budget to test audiences and creatives before scaling up.
Sponsored Ads capture existing shopping demand, while Amazon DSP expands reach and supports remarketing. Allocate resources based on incremental performance rather than comparing channels solely by ROAS.
Amazon DSP Optimization and Proxy IP Use
1. Dynamic Creative Optimization and A/B Testing
Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) adjusts ad content based on audience attributes, product information, and placement context.
Combine it with A/B testing across different copy and visual variations to identify effective combinations. Allow enough time and collect a sufficient sample before drawing conclusions.
2. Measuring Ad Attribution and Incrementality
Amazon DSP's view-through attribution can affect how ROAS is interpreted. Relying only on attributed sales in platform reports may overstate campaign impact by including purchases that would have happened anyway.
A more balanced approach is to track new-customer acquisition, changes in branded search volume, and overall sales trends. Where possible, use AMC to analyze cross-channel paths or run geographic experiments to estimate incremental impact.
3. Remote Ad Management and Multi-Region Access
Amazon DSP does not require advertisers to use a proxy IP. Campaign management, bidding, and analytics take place within the Amazon Ads platform. However, a stable overseas network connection can be useful in the following situations:
▸ Managing overseas ad accounts remotely: Teams that regularly access an advertising dashboard from a consistent location can use a static residential IP to keep their network exit location consistent during routine operations.
▸ Testing pages across regions: Use a static residential IP in the target market to check how landing pages appear locally, including language, pricing, and product availability. You can also use an IP lookup tool to verify the apparent exit location.
▸ Coordinating team access: Plan account permissions, browser environments, and network exit locations together to make access and workflows clearer for different team members.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Is Amazon DSP suitable for small and medium-sized sellers?
It depends on your advertising budget, product margins, and existing campaign performance. Sellers with established Sponsored Ads campaigns who want to reach new customers can start with a small test of prospecting and remarketing campaigns.
Q2: Can brands that do not sell on Amazon use Amazon DSP?
Yes. Eligible non-Amazon sellers can also use relevant Amazon Ads services to reach target audiences and direct traffic to their own websites.
Q3: What is the difference between Amazon DSP and Sponsored Ads?
Sponsored Ads primarily reach shoppers within Amazon's shopping environment and help products gain visibility and clicks.
Amazon DSP uses programmatic ad buying to extend reach across Amazon-owned properties and third-party inventory, making it suitable for brand awareness, audience expansion, and remarketing.
Q4: Do I need a proxy IP to use Amazon DSP?
No. Proxy IPs are mainly useful for remote access to overseas advertising dashboards and testing how pages appear in different regions. They are not required for ad delivery or campaign management.
Conclusion
Amazon DSP extends advertising reach beyond on-site search, making it useful for advertisers looking to build brand awareness, acquire new customers, and run remarketing campaigns.
Successful campaigns require ongoing optimization based on budgets, audience strategies, and attribution data—not impressions alone.
Teams that need to manage overseas accounts remotely or check how ads and landing pages appear in different markets can configure a stable network environment to support these workflows.
