Amazon Sponsored Brands video ads are keyword-targeted ads that play a short product video inside Amazon's search results. Video shares the Sponsored Brands ad type with the headline banner, once called headline search ads, and sellers need Amazon Brand Registry to run either. Video earns budget where seeing the product move answers a shopper's hesitation, and it should be graded on plain orders per dollar, because Sponsored Brands attributes sales differently from Sponsored Products.
Sponsored Brands is where a seller's dashboard and my arithmetic tend to part ways. The version I keep finding in audits is one video campaign, running branded and non-branded keywords together, kept alive by a healthy-looking ROAS tile. Whether Sponsored Brands deserves budget at all is settled in my comparison of the three Amazon ad types. This guide picks up from there: what the two formats do, when video pays, how to read its numbers, how I structure it, and what one video order is allowed to cost.
What do Sponsored Brands ads actually do in search results?
Sponsored Brands ads put your brand, in creative you control, in front of a shopper who searched a keyword you bid on. Amazon describes the placements as above, alongside, or within shopping results, and the click can go to your Brand Store or to a product detail page. The two formats that matter here are the headline banner and video.
A Sponsored Products ad borrows the look of an organic listing. A Sponsored Brands ad carries your logo and your words, and reads as an ad at a glance. You gain attention and creative control, and you give up the camouflage.
The headline banner, formerly headline search ads
The headline banner is the original Sponsored Brands format, dating from when Amazon still called the ad type headline search ads (the Sponsored Brands name arrived in 2018). It pairs your logo and a custom headline with several of your products, so one ad can present a range. Its strongest job is holding the top of your own branded search.
I hire it for two jobs. Defense: the banner above your own brand results exists whether you buy it or not, and a Brand Registered rival can buy it on your name. When one is sitting there, that campaign gets built first. Range: on a broad search that several of your products answer, one banner shows the lineup. Either way, write the headline in the shopper's search language. Someone who typed "ceramic nonstick frying pan" should see those words echoed back, not a slogan.
The video format
Sponsored Brands video plays a short product video inside the search results, and the click lands on a product detail page or your Store. It buys motion on a page full of still images, and that is its entire advantage: it can show scale, texture, fit, or a product working in a way no thumbnail can.
Amazon sells it per click or per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM), and that choice sets how it gets graded. I buy per click for anything I will judge on orders, which is nearly everything I run, and grade the rare vCPM buy as reach. For the creative, put the product on screen in the opening seconds, make it work with the sound off, and do not remake your main image in motion. The video earns its slot by answering the question your stills leave open: true size, how it folds, the texture up close.
When does Sponsored Brands video earn its budget?
Video earns its budget on high-intent, non-branded terms where your Sponsored Products ads already convert at your phase target and the product has something to show that a still image cannot. It does not earn it on a listing that fails to convert, on thin long-tail terms, or as a substitute for fixing Sponsored Products.
| Situation | Headline banner | Video | My call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your brand name, a competitor bidding on it | Yes: hold the top of your own results | Optional | Defend; judge on total sales, not the ad's ACOS |
| Your brand name, nobody contesting it | Partly buys orders you would get anyway | Rarely | Test a taper before scaling |
| Core non-branded term, Sponsored Products converting at phase target | Yes, if you sell a range worth showing | Yes: the strongest case | Test in its own campaign and budget |
| A buying question stills cannot settle (size, fit, texture, how it works) | Weak | Strong | Build the video around that one question |
| Listing converting below its phase benchmark | No | No | Fix the listing first |
| Long-tail or low-volume terms | No | No | Leave them to Sponsored Products |
Before I fund a video test on a non-branded term, three things must be true. Sponsored Products already converts on it at the phase target, so the listing can close the traffic. The product has something to show in motion that the stills do not settle. And the term carries enough search to reach a verdict; a trickle of clicks never does.
The failures I find in audits mirror those conditions. The costliest is video aimed at a listing that does not convert: my benchmark table wants conversion above 3% in awareness, rising to above 10% in profitability, and video only sends a page below its row more shoppers to lose (my guide to clicks that produce no sales walks that diagnosis). Next is the catch-all campaign, where easy branded conversions hide a non-branded half that never paid. Last is video bolted onto a leaking account: run the free Wasted Spend Finder first, and let the zero-order spend it surfaces fund the test.
How do you read Sponsored Brands numbers honestly?
Read Sponsored Brands on the same ruler as the rest of the account: spend divided by orders, per keyword, over the same date range. Its own ACOS and ROAS tiles are not directly comparable to Sponsored Products, because the two ad types attribute sales differently, and new-to-brand is a share of those orders, not proof the ad created them.
Sponsored Brands attributes sales differently from Sponsored Products
Amazon does not credit Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products sales under identical rules, so a Sponsored Brands ACOS and a Sponsored Products ACOS are measured with different rulers. Before comparing them, open the metric definitions in your own console for each ad type and note which purchases count and over what window.
I am deliberately not quoting attribution windows: they shift, and your console's definition on the day you read it is the one your numbers obey. The direction of the error does not shift. A longer window, or a wider definition of which purchases count, makes the same spend look cheaper. So I build the comparison myself: same keyword, same 60 days, spend divided by orders on each side. If Sponsored Brands wins only on its own tile, it has not won.
What new-to-brand actually tells you
New-to-brand metrics count the orders and sales from first-time customers of your brand, measured over a 12-month look-back window. That tells you who bought, not why they bought. A first-time customer who searched your brand name had usually made up their mind before the ad loaded, so new-to-brand on branded terms proves the least.
On non-branded terms I use it two ways. As a price: spend divided by new-to-brand orders is what each customer who had not bought from you in a year cost, to weigh against what a repeat customer is worth. And as a tie-breaker, under a rule short enough to memorize: new-to-brand breaks ties; it never rescues. When two video campaigns both clear the phase ceiling on plain orders, the one recruiting more first-time customers gets the next dollar. When a campaign misses the ceiling, a high new-to-brand share does not buy it more time.
How I structure and judge Sponsored Brands campaigns
I run Sponsored Brands in separate campaigns by job: one for branded defense, and one per non-branded keyword theme for video, each with its own budget, creative matched to the theme, per-click bidding, and its own negatives. That separation keeps every number readable, because no campaign can hide a loss inside another campaign's win.
- Branded defense, on its own. Brand terms only, usually the headline banner. Its ACOS will look superb, which is not the point: it exists to keep rivals off your name. My benchmark table caps branded sales at 5% of ad sales in awareness, 25% in market share, and 15% through growth and profitability, and when an account runs over its row, this campaign is one of the first places I look. Whether the defense is still needed is the taper test in my guide to what turning ads off actually does to sales.
- One non-branded theme per video campaign. Split by the reason people search. A pillow brand might give "side sleeper pillow" terms a video showing the gap between shoulder and neck being filled, and "cooling pillow" terms a video on the cover and airflow, each with its own budget and headline, so each wins or loses on its own numbers. The branded split behind this is in my campaign structure guide.
- Negatives from Sponsored Brands search terms. Broad and phrase keywords here pick up stray terms too, and two campaigns chasing the same one is search term bleed in a different ad type. Tick Sponsored Brands Search Term Data when you download the bulk file; the free N-Gram Analyzer and Negative Keyword Finder both read that tab.
A worked example: what one video order is allowed to cost
Multiply your average order value by your phase ACOS ceiling and you have the most one order can cost in ad spend. On the sample dataset I use throughout these guides, a $26.82 average order allows $10.73 at the awareness ceiling and $4.02 at the profitability ceiling. A video campaign's spend per order has to fit under its row.
| Phase | Account ACOS ceiling | Most ad spend per order |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | < 40% | $10.73 |
| Market Share | < 30% | $8.05 |
| Growth | < 25% | $6.71 |
| Profitability | < 15% | $4.02 |
The same account's Sponsored Products side spent $36,303 for 4,140 orders: $8.77 per order, which over the $26.82 average order is its 32.7% ACOS. That $8.77 is the second bar, since it is what the account already pays for an order. The table carries a warning too: in the market share phase, Sponsored Products would already sit over its $8.05 allowance, and no video test should start until that is fixed.
Then read a video campaign's own rows from the same 60 days, spend divided by orders:
- Under the phase row and at or under $8.77. It buys orders as cheaply as Sponsored Products, in a format Sponsored Products cannot offer. Scale it in steps.
- Under the phase row but above $8.77. Profitable, but a dearer order. New-to-brand breaks the tie: keep it only if it recruits first-time customers the Sponsored Products campaigns on those terms do not.
- Over the phase row. Rework the creative or cut the campaign, whatever its new-to-brand share says.
Two cautions. Give each keyword a fair trial first: about one average order's worth of clicks, roughly eleven on the Sponsored Products side here (one divided by the 9.1% conversion rate) at $0.79 each. Video clicks price differently, so rerun that with the campaign's own cost per click, using the fair-judgment threshold from my n-gram analysis guide. And in a close call, remember which attribution rules produced the video's order count: if they are looser than the Sponsored Products rules, the tie goes to Sponsored Products. No ceiling set yet? The free ACOS calculator derives break-even ACOS from your price and costs.
Frequently asked questions
Are Amazon Sponsored Brands video ads worth it?
They are worth it on a narrow set of terms: non-branded, high-intent searches where your Sponsored Products ads already convert at your phase target, for a product a video shows better than a photo. They are not worth it on a weak listing, on thin long-tail terms, or in a leaking account. Test one keyword theme at a time and judge it on spend per order.
What happened to Amazon headline search ads?
They became Sponsored Brands. Amazon renamed headline search ads in 2018, and the original format survives as the Sponsored Brands headline banner: your logo, a custom headline, and several of your products. The ad type now includes video too, and sellers still need Brand Registry to run any of it.
Why does my Sponsored Brands ACOS look better than my Sponsored Products ACOS?
Usually for two reasons. Sponsored Brands attributes sales under different rules than Sponsored Products, so the two ACOS figures use different rulers. And many Sponsored Brands campaigns carry branded keywords, whose shoppers were already looking for you. Split branded from non-branded, then compare spend per order on the same keywords and dates before crediting either ad type.
Should Sponsored Brands video send shoppers to my Store or my product page?
Amazon offers both. I default to the product detail page when the video features one hero product, because the shopper who clicked wants that product and a Store adds a step before the buy button. A Store earns the click when the search is broad and your range answers it better than one listing. When unsure, test both as separate campaigns and compare spend per order.
Should I use CPC or vCPM bidding for Sponsored Brands?
Pick CPC whenever orders are how the campaign will be graded, and for a typical private-label brand that covers almost everything. vCPM charges per thousand viewable impressions, so it buys reach rather than clicks and suits a brand with a deliberate reason to pay for awareness. Grade a vCPM campaign as an awareness buy, never against your Sponsored Products ACOS.
What is a good new-to-brand percentage on Amazon?
No universal number exists, and a high one is not automatically good. New-to-brand counts orders from customers who had not bought your brand within a 12-month look-back, which tells you who bought, not whether the ad caused it. Compare it across your own non-branded campaigns, use it to break ties between campaigns that already clear your ACOS ceiling, and discount it on branded terms.
Sources
- Sponsored Brands, Amazon Ads
Grade the Sponsored Products side before you buy motion
Video multiplies whatever your Sponsored Products foundation already does, so check that first. Drop your last 60 days of bulk data into the free Account Health Snapshot for an eight-metric grade against your phase (no email, no account, nothing stored), and use the free Audit Dashboard to see the rows behind any failing grade. For a second opinion on a video test, book the free 30-minute diagnosis call and I will run this guide's cost-per-order test on your own numbers.